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ARCHBISHOP 

ROTHERHAM, 

LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, 
AND CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY: 

a Sketch of his Life and Environment, 

BY 

v' 

HENRY LEIGH BENNETT, M.A., 

Rector of St. Mary Magdalene's, Lincoln ; Prebendary of Kilsby 
in the Cathedral of Lincoln ; late Rector of Thrybergh, Yorkshire. 



Digression is so much in modern use, 
Thought is so rare, and fancy so profuse, 
Some never seem so wide of their intent. 
As when returning to the theme they meant. 
As mendicants, whose business is to roam, 
Make every parish but their own, their home : 
Though such continual zigzags in a book, 
Such drunken reelings have an awkward look. 
And I had rather creep to what is true, 
Than rove and stagger with no mark in view, 
Yet to consult a little, seemed no crime, 
The freakish humour of the present time. 

Co7iversation. — William Cowper. 



Profits on this Edition to be given to the Endowment of 
St, Mary Magdalene's Benefice, Lincoln. 



LINCOLN 

J. W. Ruddock 253 H>;g}?.Str^et{ 






"ox, 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

JOHN Gy EST, F.S. A., 

THE HISTORIAN OF ROTHERHAM, 
THIS LITTLE VOLUME 
IS 
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 

BY 

ONE OF HIS MANY STUDENTS 

AND 

CLIENTS. 



PREFACE. 



npHIS little book is the work of an amateur local 
historian. The local historian is a peacock for 
vanity. If he discovers his village among the numerous 
manors of John of Gaunt, he considers it a duty to the 
nation to write the history of the dynasty of Lancaster 
from the meridian of that village. 

When engaged on the sketch of the Life of 
Archbishop Rotherham for the Dictionary of National 
Biography, it seemed to me that a fuller picture of the 
old prelate's life in its stormier and quieter surroundings 
might certainly be of interest to Sheffield and Rotherham, 
where he is a hero, and, possibly — to the University of 
Cambridge, which to this day commemorates him as one 
of her great benefactors ; to the dioceses of York (over 
which he presided as primate), Lincoln and Rochester ; 
and to members of Lincoln College Oxford, which 
reveres him as her Second Founder. To the nature of 
the stormier surroundings Lord Lytton's " Last of the 
Barons," and Shakespeare's " Richard IIL" may testify : 
Rotherham cannot be represented as a maker of history ; 
but he was in the very centre of the vortex, owing to 
it both his eminence and his fall. As for the quieter 
scenes, the fascinating books on Mediaeval Cambridge 
might yield us a glimpse of the town of wood and 
thatch, at a time when the MonasterieSj and not the 
Colleges, were the dominants of its architecture — the 
great courts of Trinity and St. John's, the great Church 
of St. Mary's, and the great Chapel at King's being as 
yet unbuilt. From the same source also we might win 
some faint idea of the University world in the slumbrous 



VI. PREFACE. 

time before the invasion of the New Learning and the 
outburst of the Reformation. And last, the old Diocesan 
Registers of Lincoln and York, interpreted and illustrated 
by local histories and architectural remains, might shew 
us something of the baronial state and the diocesan 
administration of a mediaeval bishop. 

But for Guest's accumulations in his " Historic 
Notices of Rotherham," the book would neither have 
been conceived nor undertaken. I have, however, except 
in two leading instances (the transcript of Cole's MS., 
and the translation of "The Statutes of Jesus College, 
Rotherham,") verified his references ; and especially in 
regard to Rotherham's life at Cambridge and in 
Parliament, his benefactions to Lincoln College, and the 
general historical situation, as well as in several minor 
details, the base of authority is much wider. I have 
endeavoured also to give some organic unity to the 
account. Those who are familiar with Guest's book 
know that it is in this that he fails us. His patience, 
thoroughness in research, collection and chronicle of 
evidence, are admirable : but his power of drawing his 
facts into a focus and presenting them in a single 
picture is poorer. We often feel a doubt whether we 
may not have missed something pregnant for the 
biographical moment, through the looseness of his 
arrangement of facts. 

I hope that I have indicated in all cases the books 
from which I have gained information. My debts of 
acknowledgment to personal correspondents are very 
numerous. Many I have endeavoured to note in the 
passages, where their aid has been so great. In a 
more general way I desire here to express my thanks 
to Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson, Librarian of King's 
College, Cambridge ; Rev. G. A. Weekes, Librarian of 



PREFACE. Vll. 

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge ; Dr. Searle, Master 
of Pembroke College, Cambridge ; Mr. J. Arthur Munro, 
Librarian of Lincoln College, Oxford ; Mr. S. W. Kershaw, 
Librarian at Lambeth Palace ; Rev. Andrew Clark, 
Author of the History of Lincoln College in '• The 
Colleges of Oxford"; Rev. H. E. Nolloth, Vicar of 
Beverley ; Rev. R. G. Glennie, late Chaplain of the 
Archbishop of York ; Mr. E. C. Sherwood, Westminster 
School ; Mr. H. A. Hudson, Registrar of York ; Mr. 
William Smith, Secretary to the Bishop of Lincoln ; 
Sir Arthur Marshall, Buckden ; Mr. Arthur Hussey, 
Wingham ; Mr. Maurice H. Footman, Lincoln ; Mr. 
Ernest Leigh Bennett, Mr. James Knight, Rotherham ; 
Mr. Reginald A. Gatty, Hooton Roberts. 

I am also very grateful to Miss Mary Crossley for 
her photographs of the Head of Rotherham and his 
Tomb at York Minster; to Messrs. Davis & Sons, 
Halifax, for permission to reproduce their photographs 
of the Tower of Buckden ; to Mr. E. Dossetter, for 
photographs of the Old Court at King's College and the 
Old Schools, Cambridge ; to Mr. Hardwick, Cambridge, 
for the photograph of The Statutes of the College 
of Jesus, Rotherham ; and to Messrs. Macmillan & Bowes 
for permission to reproduce the Engraving of the Old 
Court at King's College from Cooper's " Memorials of 
Cambridge." 

H.L.B. 



ERRATA. 
On page 22, line 20, instead of "four" read "poor." 
On page 27, line 30, instead of " V." read " VI." 
On page 48, line 35, instead of " Consecration " read " Consistory." 
On page 52, line 31, instead of "The Tower" read "Sanctuary." 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii. 

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , v. 

Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii. 

Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x. 

Chapter 1. 
Introductory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i 

Chapter II. 
Early School Days .. .. 12 

Chapter III. 
Life at Cambridge 25 

Chapter IV. 
First Preferments. — The First Crisis of the Wars of the Koses.. ^^ 

Chapter V. 
The Last Crisis of the Wars of the Roses . . . . . . . . 44 

Chapter VI. 
Rotherham as Chancellor of Cambridge and Founder of Lincoln 

College, Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 

Chapter VII. 
Rotherham Chancellor of England 71 

Chapter VIII. 
The Last Days of Edward IV. go 

Chapter IX. 
The Last Days of Rotherham's Public Life 98 

Chapter X. 
Rotherham as a Bishop 109 

Chapter XI. 
The Red College of Rotherham .. .. 133 

Chapter XII. 
The Last Will of Rotherham ' .. 152 



CONTENTS — continued. 

PAGE 

Note A. — On the Rotherham Family in Luton . . . . . . 163 

Note B. — Pedigree of Archbishop Rotherham .. .. .. 166 

Pedigree of the Rotherhams of Someries . . . . 167 

Pedigree of the Rotherhams of Farley . . . . . . 168 

Note C. — On Anthony Wood's Claim of Rotherham as an 

Oxonian . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 

Note D. — On Rotherham's Degrees at Cambridge and Oxford,. 172 

Note E. — On Lincoln College 173 

Note F. — On Lord Wenlock and the Rotherhams of Someries.. 176 

Note G. — On the Delivery of the Duke of York out of Sanctuary 178 

Note H. — Petition from the University of Cambridge to the 

Duke of Gloucester . . . . . . . . 181 

Note L — On the Chantry License for the Altar of Jesus .. 182 

Note J. — The Buildings of the College of Jesus 184 

Note K. — The Plate, Vestments, and Service Books of the 

College of Jesus .. .. .. ,. .. i85 

Note L. — Notable Inmates of the College of Jesus .. .. 188 

Note M. — The College of Jesus and the Grammar School . . igo 

Note N.— The Will of Thos. Rotherham, Archbishop of York.. igr 

Note O. — Traces of Archbishop Rotherham in York Minster . . 202 

Note P. — Representations of Archbishop Rotherham , , . . 203 

Authorities 206 

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Q 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



I. — Original Court of King's College, Cambridge (now the Western 
Court of the University Library), looking Southwards. From 
" Cantabrigia Illustrata," by David Loggan. (Frontispiece.) 

2. — Original Court of King's College, Cambridge (now the Western 
Court of the University Library), looking Northwards, Taken 
by permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Bowes, from the En- 
graving in Cooper's "Memorials of Cambridge." (Opposite p. 25.) 

3. — The Old Schools at Cambridge, shewing the East Front, built 
by Archbishop Rotherham. From " Cantabrigia Illustrata," by 
David Loggan. (Opposite p. 57.) 

4. — Portrait of Archbishop Rotherham. From the Mezzotint by Faber, 
Oxford. (Opposite p. 70.) 

5._The Old Palace at Buckden. From an old print. (Opyosite p. 119.) 

6. The Tower of Buckden : probably built by Archbishop Rotherham. 

Taken by permission from a Photograph by Messrs. Davis & 
Sons, Halifax. (Opposite p lUl.) 

y. First page of "The Statutes of the College of Jesus," preserved 

in the Library of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. (Opposite 
p. 131.) 

g^ Tomb of Archbishop Rotherham in York Minster. Taken by 

permission from a Photograph by Miss Mary Crossley, 
(Opposite p. 154.) 

g, Wooden Head of an Effigy, found in the tomb of Archbishop 

Rotherham at York : preserved in the Vestry of York Minster. 
(Opposite p. 203.) 



CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

There was an Aylmer-Averill marriage once, 

When the red rose was redder than itself, 

And York's white rose as red as Lancaster's 

With wounded peace which each had pricked to death. 

" Not proven," Averill said, or laughingly 

" Some other race of Averills : " proven or no. 

What cared he ? What, if other or the same ? 

He leaned not on his fathers, but himself. 

" Aylmer's Field." — Tennyson. 

The Name and Lineage of the Archbishop — Family name, 
Scott, or Botherham — The Surname of Scott — The Surname 
of Botherham — The Legitimacy of Thomas Botherham — The 
name of Botherham not adopted first on eiitrance into Holy 
Orders — The Scotts of Scot's Hall — Spellings of the name of 
Thomas Botherham. 



OOME account of the Name and Lineage is the 
general prelude to the movement of a biography; 
and, unless it can be lighted by brilliant incidents or 
figures, it is fated to be dull. This chapter will be a 
heavy illustration of the rule : for while the known 
certainties about our Archbishop's family and kindred 
must here be given, we have to consider the curious 
puzzle about his surname, on which pages of discussion 
have been written, and also a claim, advanced in recent 
years, which would make him a scion of a venerable 
house. 



2 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

What was the surname of the old prelate ? 
ami y name . j^^ ^^^ ^j^^ ^j^ bioerraphies and under the 
Scott, OP . 

RotheFham °^^ pictures we find the surname given as 

" Scott, alias Rotherham," " Rotherham, 
alias Scot," etc. Which of these surnames is the earliest 
or most authoritative ? What was the origin of the al- 
ternative names ? 

The name of Scott, though only found in 
The name authorities of the i6th and 17th centuries, 

is too widely and strongly attested to be 
considered a mistake.* Perhaps the strongest piece of 
evidence is that connected with a bequest in Rotherham's 
last Will. " John Scott," he says, " my blood relation 
(consanguineus), who has an inheritance although small 
in the Parish of Ecclesfield, successively descending in 
the same name and blood from a time beyond the 
memory of men — shall have for himself and the male 
heirs of his body lawfully begotten my manor of Barnes 
situate in the aforesaid parish . . . and also my manor 
of Housely."t The family of the Scotts of Barnes 
Hall was well known by Hunter, and by his editor, Dr. 
Gatty, Rector of Ecclesfield, who have expended much 
labour on the pedigree. There is in the church there a 
fine recumbent figure of Sir John Scott, who died in 
1628 ; and the inscription on it begins : — " Richardus 
Scott antiqua Scotorum in agro Eboracensi familia 
oriundus et in equestrem ordinem merito scriptus cujus 

* It is found in the very early life in Stubbs' " Lives of the Arch- 
bishops of York," which Canon Raine dates 1491 — 1538 ; in Leland ; 
in Bishop Wrenn's MSS. at Pembroke ; in Anthony Wood, who gives 
this as the inscription under Rotherham's pictures in the series of 
Founders of Colleges, in the Bodleian, put up in 1670, " Thomas de 
Rotherham, alias Scott ; " and under the picture at Lincoln College, 
Oxford, " Tho. de Rotheram, alias Scot." 

t Guest, p. 140. 



CHAPTER I.] INTRODUCTORY. 3 

inter proavos maxime eminuerit summa semper laude 
nominandus Thomas Scott ArchP"^ Ebor^'^ qui inter alia 
quam plurima munificentias suae monumenta Collegium 
Jesuanum instituit.* 

On the other hand, in every document eman- 
name of ^ting from Thomas himself, in every record 

of his many preferments, in all the official 
designations of his name by the University of Cambridge 
during his Chancellorship there, the name of Rotherham 

* The assertion of the name Scott, as that of the Archbishop, is of 
course very weighty. Perhaps the links of relationship between him and 
the Scotts, of Barnes Hall, which are not quite clear, may be best given 
here. In the bequest above, the Archbishop directed that, if John Scott 
died without an heir, the estate should go to Richard Scott, the next 
brother, and if he also died without an heir, should revert to the right 
heirs of the Archbishop. If we can trust a pedigree subscribed by Richard 
St. George Norroy, King at Arms (said to be "well proved by authenticated 
matters") on his Visitation of the Northern parts in 1612, John and 
Richard both did die childless : for he traces the descent of the estate 
thus : — " The Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England died in 
1500. . . His brother married and had Sir Thomas and George : George 
had John, who had Richard Scott, of Barnes Hall " : (History of Hallam- 
shire, by Joseph Hunter : edited by Dr. Gatty). The original John and 
Richard Scott having both died without issue, the estate reverts to 
another Richard, who is descended from George, the younger son of the 
Archbishop's brother, John (always called Rotherham) of Someries. Mr. 
Alfred Scott Gatty, York Herald, however in his register of Ecclesfield, 
points out the extraordinary mortality which this line assumes. John 
Scott, the father of the second Richard Scott, was dead in 1521, and the 
Archbishop had died in 1500. So in 21 years the estate must have passed 
through four hands, those of John Scott and his brother Richard, George 
the nephew of the Archbishop and John his son. He inclines therefore 
to believe the second Richard to be identical with the first, and brother 
of the John to whom the Archbishop left the estate originally. Two 
facts may be added in corroboration of Mr. Gatty's objection. In the 
Visitation of Cambridgeshire by Sir Henry St. George (i6ig) mentioned 
below (Note B), no legitimate son is attributed to George the nephew of 
the Archbishop : the only son named is a natural son, George. And 
further, if we are to suppose that the Barnes estate reverted through 
failure of issue to the rightful heirs of the Archbishop, these heirs would 
be found, not in the line of George, who was the younger son, but 
Thomas who was the eldest son of John of Someries, the Archbishop's 
brother. 



4 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

is used without a hint of the name ot Scott*. In the entries 
of preferment his brother Roger, who was an ecclesiastic, 
is similarly always designated by the name of Rotherham. 
His brother John, who was a layman, also described him- 
self in his Will (1492) simply as John Rotherham : from 
this brother sprang the family of the Rotherhams of 
Someries, which continued in Luton for several generations. 
While there is thus abundant contemporary evidence for 
the use of the name Rotherham by the three brothers, there 
is also evidence for the use of this name by their father, 
though of a less conclusive kind. In three dififerent volumes 
of the Collections of Augustine Vincent, Windsor Herald, 
and in Bishop Kennett's MSS. the father's name is given 
as Rotherhamt; and also in the Visitation of Cambridge- 
shire (i6iq) by Sir Henry St. George Norroy, which was 
copied by Cole, the Cambridge antiquarian. J 



* The personal documents are: i, The entry of his name in the "In- 
ventory of 1452 " at King's College, the earliest known registry of the 
College: "Thomas Rotherham de com Ebor," 2, His register at 
Lincoln, " Thome Rotherham " (1472). 3, His first Will, in which he 
calls his brother " John Rotherham " (1475). 4, His register at York, 
"Thome Rotherham" (1480). 5, His last Will, "Thomas Rotherham." 
The only apparent exception to this rule is in the catalogue of Members 
of King's College begun by Thomas Hatcher in 1555, and continued by 
John Scott until 1620, where the entry is, " Thomas Scott, alias Rother- 
ham." But the handwriting of this catalogue belongs to the time of 
John Scott, and not that of Hatcher : and the biographical details, with 
this among them, may be the work of John Scott. The entries at 
Cambridge are very numerous, some referring to him simply as a 
member of the University, in the Grace book A : others to his acts as 
Chancellor, There are also, the enrolment of his name among the 
benefactors of the University; the decree of Exequies; and a petition 
for him to Richard HI. The name of Scott never appears. As an 
example of entries of preferments we may quote the appointment to 
St. Vedast, Foster Lane : " Thomas Rotherham, S.T.B." Feb. 13, 1465 
(Register Bourchier). 

t Notes and Queries, vol. vii., page 470: vol. viii., p. 370. 

} The pedigree is given in full from Cole's MSS. in Guest, p. 99. 



CHAPTER I.j INTRODUCTORY. 5 

The authority of both surnames being so great, two 

theories have been started to account for the alternative : 

illegitimacy, or change of name on the adoption of the 

priestly profession. There are however objections to both 

of them. 

Illegitimacy would in the ordinary course 

® have been a bar to Ordination. This, how- 

. _, ever, as will be seen below, could have 

of Thomas. ' 

been managed by an expensive dispensa- 
tion from the Pope. But the fact that the arms of the 
Scotts, of Barnes Hall, and those of the Archbishop, and 
his brother John, are the same, points to the conclusion 
that the name of Scott was that of their father, not their 
mother. Yet the earliest pedigree, lately quoted, gives the 
name of the father as Sir Thomas Rotherham : and the 
two brothers of the Archbishop were without doubt 
always called Rotherham, so that they too by the same 
reasoning must be pronounced illegitimate, and Roger 
the priest could only have been Ordained by dispensation.* 
The known facts about the name of Rother- 
name of j^^j^ ^^jg^ dispose of the commonly-accepted 

i. J i J explanation of the double name, which is 
not adopted ^ 

by Thomas excellently given in this quotation from 
on entering ' Fuller's Worthies ' (1662) : " Thomas Ro- 
Holy Orders, therham was born at Rotherham, no obscure 
town in this county : waving his paternal 
name, he took that of Rotherham from the place of his 
nativity. This I observe the rather, because he was 
(according to my exactest enquiry) the last clergyman 
of note with such an assumed surname ; which custom 

* Mr. Bellasis, the Lancaster Herald, kindly informed me that in the 
MS. at the Herald's College, compiled by Sale (circa 1721), the name 
of the Archbishop's mother is given as Alice Rotherham. But in the 
pedigree of i6ig her surname is not given at all. 



b ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

began now to grow out of fashion, and clergymen (like 
other men) to be called by the name of their fathers." 
Similarly, Godwin (De Praesulibus Angliae, 1613), says 
that he desired his name to be changed to that of 
Rotherham, his birth-place, " more ecclesiasticis homini- 
bus usitato." The entry of the name of the Archbishop 
at the age of twenty in the contemporary catalogue at 
King's College as ' Thomas Rotherham,' is not decisive 
against this theory, because he may then have received 
the first tonsure. But the exclusive use of the name 
Rotherham by his brother John, a layman, and its 
apparent use by his father before him, show that entrance 
on the priestly life was not the occasion of its adoption. 
On the whole, the theory which is most free from 
objection is, that the original name of the family was 
Scott ; but that, apparently in the generation before the 
Archbishop, a practice had grown up of calling them- 
selves, from the name of the town in which they lived, 
Rotherham. 

Founded on the name of Scott, there is a 
The Scotts, claim of ancestry which we must next con- 
sider. Mr. James Renat Scott, in " The 
Memorials of the Family of Scott of Scot's Hall," has 
claimed Thomas as a member of this ancient house, 
which was seated at Smeeth and Brabourne in Kent, 
and derives from Sir William Baliol, youngest brother 
of John Baliol, the competitor of Bruce for the throne 
of Scotland. According to Mr. Scott's contention, the 
father of Thomas was Sir John Scotte, High Sheriff of 
Kent (39th Henry VI., and 7th Edward IV.), Privy 
Councillor to the King, Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports, Governor of Dover Castle, Marshal of Calais, and 
Ambassador to the Duke of Burgundy (12th Edward IV.) 
If this claim could be sustained, the Archbishop would 



CHAPTER I.] INTRODUCTORY. 7 

be endowed with a distinguished ancestry, and we should 
be able to picture father and son in frequent connection 
with each other about the person of Edward IV. during 
the Archbishop's tenure of the office of Chancellor of 
England. But the claim breaks down under examination. 
The ' three bucks trippant, attired or,' which are the arms 
alike of the Archbishop, the Rotherhams of Someries, 
and the Scotts of Barnes Hall, are entirely distinct from 
the three Catherine wheels (said to be derived from the 
badge of Baliol), which characterize the coat of the 
Scotts of Brabourne. In the voluminous documents and 
deeds which Mr. Renat Scott has printed, not one bears 
evidence of relationship : the utmost which Mr. Renat 
Scott is able to assert from the Scot's Hall documents is, 
that the Archbishop's name " frequently appears in the 
Scot's Hall records sometimes in the light of a Trustee, 
at others as an arbitrator." But this may have arisen 
from the connection of Thomas Rotherham with Kent, 
first as Provost of Wingham, and next as Bishop of 
Rochester. When he was at Wingham, he became and 
remained through life a trusted legal adviser of the 
Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury : Sellynge, the 
prior, was a neighbour through his place of birth of 
the Brabourne Scotts, and a great friend of Rotherham. 
When we confront the known facts in the life of Sir 
John Scott and his family with the known facts about 
Archbishop Rotherham, the claim becomes hopeless. The 
name of Sir John Scott's wife was Agnes Beaufitz ; the 
name of Archbishop Rotherham's father was Sir Thomas, 
and the name of his mother was Alice. The Wills of 
Sir John Scotte and his wife Agnes are given by Mr. 
Renat Scott : both of them were made before the last 
Will of Archbishop Rotherham — Sir John's being dated 
1485, and his widow's 1487. In neither of these Wills, 



o ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

though several names are mentioned, does the name 
of either the Archbishop, or his two brothers John and 
Roger, occur : the eldest son is in both Wills named 
William : there is no trace whatever of any Yorkshire 
or Bedfordshire property. In Archbishop Rotherham's 
two Wills, on the other hand, one of which is earlier, 
and the other later than these, there is no mention of 
any of the names of persons (who on Mr. Renat Scott's 
theory would be his sisters or nieces) mentioned in the 
Wills of Sir John and Agnes Scott, although more 
distant relations, such as the Scott at Ecclesfield, are 
remembered : his brother is distinctly named John, and 
not William : and there is no trace whatever of any 
property at Brabourne.* 

The other pieces of evidence more or less direct are 
very slight. The name " Rico a Barne " is adduced, as 
that of Richard Scott of Barnes Hall : but the Will of 
Archbishop Rotherham does not give the manor of Barnes 
to Richard until after the death of his elder brother 
John Scott, nor is it certain that he ever lived to possess 
it at all. It is far more natural to suppose that the 
witness came from Barnes in Surrey. An extract from 
the Corporation records of the Cinque Ports in Sir John 
Scott's time runs : " Payde to a manne of Sir John Scotte 

* Of the documents said to prove connection between the Archbishop 
and the Scotts of Brabourne, only one, containing his name as an 
• arbitrator,' is printed in ' The Memorials '; and this may be naturally 
interpreted as a transaction before Rotherham as Chancellor. Among 
the relatives of the Scotts was one John Pympe, who left the following 
memorandum of his debts:— " These be the dettes that I John Pympe 
owe or have owed Sithence . . . Item. In the tyme of my sute for 
the manr of Nettlested my Lord Roderham that tyme Bysshop of Lincoln 
let me in comfort of my sute xx^' off what he assigned me to pay to my 
brother Raynolde Pympe as hys gyfte to by that tyme beyg hys srvaunt 
which I paid by by divers payments. Whereof my obligation restyth yet 
in my seid Lord's hands." p. Ixiii. 



CHAPTER I.] INTRODUCTORY. 9 

bryngynge tydynges fromme Lynkolle (Lincoln) 8d." 
This is interpreted as a message from Rotherham, then 
Bishop of Lincoln. But Rotherham's residence at Lincoln 
was very casual. The number of residences possessed 
by the Bishops of Lincoln will appear later (chapter x).* 

Of the parents of Thomas Rotherham we 

® know scarcely anything. Their house was in 

Sotherham i • <. 

Family Jesus Gate, on the site afterwards occupied 

by the College of Jesus, t in Rotherham. 

If we assume that the father Sir Thomas Rotherham 

did not die until after 1475, it is possible that the pieces 

of property near Rotherham mentioned (without any 

record of purchase attached to them) in the last Will 

of the Archbishop, and perhaps other property elsewhere 

had descended to him from his father. | The family 

would of course be on terms of acquaintance or intimacy 

with the great families of the neighbourhood within a 

radius of ten miles or so. Dame Alice Rotherham, the 

mother, lived after the death of Sir Thomas with her 

son John Rotherham at Someries, and was buried in the 



• See • The Memorials of the family of Scott of Scot's Hall,' pp. 118- 
122. The whole case concerning the name and claim by Mr. Renat 
Scott is discussed in a long correspondence in ' Notes and Queries,' 
Fifth Series, vols. vii. — ix. 

t Volo quod unum collegium erigatur in villa predicta (Rotherham) in 
eodem loco in quo natus fueram. Will of Archbishop Rotherham, 1498. 

J In the Archbishop's Will of 1475 no Yorkshire property is men- 
tioned. In that of 1498 he mentions several pieces of property near 
Rotherham, which he has purchased : and besides these, a house near 
the College, a house at Brinsworth, a tenement at Scoles, lands at 
Mexbrough, at Newthorp near Aston, at Dinnington, Throapham, 
Gildenwells, Staunford near Hatfield, and Wentworth. There are also 
manors in other counties, not named in the Will of 1475. In the Will 
of John Rotherham, brother of the Archbishop, no Yorkshire property 
appears. 



lO ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

church at Luton.* There were three sons and a daughter, 

John, the founder of the family at Someries, must have 

been younger than Thomas, if he is the man mentioned 

in the earliest Register at King's College, Cambridge, as 

entering there in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VI. 

Gough says that he was more than once Sheriff of 

Bedfordshire : he founded a Guild of the Holy Trinity 

in Luton Church, in 1475 : he died in 1492. His son 

Sir Thomas married a daughter of Lord Anthony Grey 

de Ruthin : his name occurs in a list of great gentlemen 

in the account of the reception of Catherine of Arragon 

in 1501 :t he died in 1504. Roger, the third son of Sir 

Thomas and Dame Alice, entered Holy Orders, and was 

promoted (no doubt by his brother) to the Archdeaconry 

of Rochester : on May 30, 1472, he was appointed to the 

Prebend of Leicester, but resigned it in the same year : 

on Jan. 2, 1473, he was made Archdeacon of Leicester rj 

he died in 1477. § The daughter, whose name is not 

known, married and had a daughter, who was betrothed 

to Richard Restwold.|| See further details in " Note A 

on the Rotherham family in Luton." 

One further remark may close this Intro- 

Spe ings ductory Chapter. From this point we shall 

of the Name ,, /tm , , ^ --> 

„ _, cease to call Ihomas by the name 01 Scott, 

of Thomas ^ ' 

Rotherham. keeping entirely to the name Rotherham, 
which all the three brothers preferred. More 

* See the Will of Archbishop Rotherham (1498). Guest, p. 139. In 
the Registers of the Guild of the Holy Trinity at Luton occurs this 
entry (1475) : — " Dna alicia Rotheram mater dicti dni thome ep' line." 

t See Letters and Papers illustrative of the reign of Richard IIL 
and Henry VH. ; edited by James Gairdner, p. 139. 

J Le Neve's Fasti. 

§ Cooper's Athenge Cantabrigienses. 

11 Will of Archbishop Rotherham. Guest, p. 139. 



CHAPTER I.] INTRODUCTORY. II 

often than not this name, both as that of the town and 
the brothers, is spelt " Rotheram ; " but as all the per- 
sonal documents spell it " Rotherham," we shall adopt 
this use, except in quotations. We shall not call him 
" de Rotherham," as no contemporary does so. The two 
pictures under which the name is written *' de Rotherham," 
belong to the 17th century. 



CHAPTER II. 
EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. 

A Clerk there was of Oxenforde also, 
That unto Logike hadde long ygo. 

For him was lever han at his beddes head 
A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red 
Of Aristotle and his phliosophie, 
Than robes riche or fidel or sautrie, 
But all be that he was a philosopher 
Yet hadde he but lite! gold in coffre. 

Souning in moral vertue was his speche, 
And gladly wold he lerne and gladly teche. 

Prologue to the " Canterbury Tales.'^ — Chaucer. 

Medimval Botherham — Birth and Baptism of Thomas — 
Local Surroundings — Historical Associations — Early Educa- 
tion. The Teacher of Grammar — Possible Education at Eton 
and Winchester — Education at Eton not a certainty — Anthony 
Wood's claim of Botherham as an Oxonian. 



nPHE present town of Rotherham, in 
Mediaeyal 1 Yorkshire, is a Borough of about 50,000 

inhabitants.* It is surrounded by a large 
colliery district, and is itself sustained and blackened by 
great industries of brass and iron. The first industrial 
impetus was given to it in the commencement of this 

* The population in 1891 was 42,000. It is now certainly much 
larger : the increase of buildings is very great. The estimate of the 
Medical Officer of Health in 1898 was 52,000. 



CHAPTER II.] EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. I3 

century, when the firm of the Walkers became celebrated 
throughout England by its supply of cannon for the 
Peninsula and Waterloo. Their greatest achievement was 
Rennie's iron bridge at Southwark (1819), which very 
appropriately is represented, as well as the arms of Arch- 
bishop Rotherham, on the shield of the borough. In its 
network of streets and courts there are some relics of 
timber-crossed antiquity, and two notable mediaeval build- 
ings : the interesting chapel of our Lady at the Bridge, 
which to the discredit of Rotherham has long been 
desecrated, once as a gaol, and now as a tobacconist's 
shop ; and the noble spacious cruciform church with its 
stately tower and spire, which as viewed from the North 
and East dominates the town. Neither however of these 
buildings in its present aspect carries us back to the 
childhood of the subject of this memoir. The chapel 
was not built until his later days. The church was very 
different and only attained its present splendid development 
at a slightly earlier date than that of the chapel, perhaps 
through the munificence of Archbishop Rotherham himself. 
If we wish therefore to form some dim picture of the 
place in the first quarter of the 15th century, our first 
step is to bring back the green fields almost everywhere, 
and make the Don, which winds through it, a silver 
stream full of perch and trout, with now and then a 
far-travelled salmon ; bordered by water meadows and 
corn fields, behind which the ground rises in sylvan 
slopes. On a swelling eminence above a curve of the 
river will stand a cruciform church, shorter in every limb 
than the present one, with Norman arcades within, steep 
roofs, and at their crossing a new white lantern tower 
recently built at the instance of the Abbots of Rufiord 
by money partly raised through the sale of Indulgences. 
The timber houses of the town will be on the southern 



14 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

and eastern sides of the church. The rich suburb called 
Moorgate will be a country road leading through meadows 
(The Crofts) to a real moor. The East Wood will 
clothe the upland now lined with the luxurious resi- 
dences of Doncaster Gate. A clear brook will flow 
through the green valley of Well Gate, and the fields of 
Jesus Gate (now College Street) into the Don. Small 
indeed as it seems to us, and poorer in adornment, than 
when Leland saw it in the prosperous Tudor days, 
enriched by its present noble church, and Rotherham's 
" fair college sumptuously builded of brike," it was a 
notable Yorkshire town for the England of its day, with 
a population of about 3,000 inhabitants.* 

At the house of a knight in Jesus Gate on 
Birth and g^.^ Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1423, 
was born the boy, who in due time was 
baptised in the old font (which still remains in the 
South Chapel of the Church) by the name of Thomas. 
" In the town of Rotherham . . . we were born, and by 
the font of regeneration born again," says Archbishop 
Rotherham in "The Statutes of Jesus College." "I was 
born in the town of Rotherham and baptized in the 
church of the same town; and so at that same place 
was born into the world and also born again by the 
Holy bath flowing from the side of Jesus, whose name, 
O, if I loved as I ought and would." So he writes in 
the touching and reverent language of his last Will.t 

* Mr. F. J. S. Foljambe in a speech a few years ago mentioned the 
fact that in his childhood a salmon was caught at Aldwarke, which is 
close to the town. In the Chantry Certificates of Edward VI., regard- 
ing the College of Jesus at Rotherham, the houslyng population is 
stated to be 2,000. Another thousand should be added for the child 
population. Guest, History of Rotherham, p. 147. 

t Guest, pp. 106, 136. 



CHAPTER II.] EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. 15 

The life of England at that time has been 

Local drawn for us by a master's hand in Lord 

Surroundings, ^ytton's "Last of the Barons." With 

slight allowance for changed fashions in dress and armour, 

and the increase of wealth and energy through the victories 

in France, the speaking portraitures of the Canterbury 

Tales will also hold good for this period. There is not 

much to note in the special environment of the boy. 

Even then coal burnt with the logs on the Rotherham 

hearth ; iron was dug, and wrought and smelted at the 

rude forges ; and the Sheffield knives were of approved 

excellence throughout England. Bearing in mind the 

destination of Thomas, perhaps from early years, to the 

life of the priesthood, we may note that the manifold 

appeals by which the church spoke to the ear and eye 

and imagination on the great history of the Incarnation 

and the glory of the world to come — whether through 

solemn architecture and wealth of colour, storied windows 

and images of saints; by stately ritual, processions, and 

joyous festivals ; or in the chantry masses, the guilds, 

the mysteries, and miracle plays — would all be strongly 

made to him in the church of his home. The varied 

figures of the ecclesiastical world — perhaps the stately 

Abbot of Rufford himself, the patron of the church, 

certainly Cistercians in their white frocks from Rufford or 

from Roche, White Carmelite, Grey Franciscan, and Black 

Dominican Friars from Doncaster— would be often before 

his eyes ; and the writer of these pages likes to think 

that the boy may have learned to love WilHam Reresby 

the priest of Thrybergh, and watch the new belfry and 

spire, the new windows filled with saints and angels 

and kneeling figures of knights and dames of the Reresby 

house, with which William was enriching the little village 



l6 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

church ; hearing also from the good priests' lips about 
the life of learning at the University, which in after 
years was to be one of the things nearest to Thomas 
Rotherham's heart.* 

It will be well to signalise shortly that 

Historical memorable juncture in English History which 

Associations. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ common talk of men, and 

pregnant with moment for the after-life of Thomas as a 
statesman-ecclesiastic : there were local circumstances 
which must have made the impress of it singularly 
distinct and deep to him. The memory of several — 
among them probably his own father — would span the 
past of the dynasty of Lancaster. Some would have 
been at Doncaster in 1399, when Henry of Bolingbroke, 
after landing at Ravenspurn and receiving the support 
of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, had 
sworn, at the house of the Carmelites, that he was only 
seeking his father's estates, and would make no claim 
to the crown. The great ghost of Henry V. would haunt 
the air : and there may have been men who had borne 
a pike of local make, or, trained in the woodland and 
forest round them, had drawn a good bow at Agincourt. 
Now that the Star of England was waning before the 



* In a Charter of Kirkstead Abbey (Cotton MS. Vesp. E xviii. fo. 127b), 
circa 1161 — 1166, there is a grant to the monks of " unum mariagium 
in territorio de Kymberworth ad domos suas et ortum et quatuor forgias 
faciendas ; duas scilicet ad quoquendum ferrum et duas ad fabricandum, 
quando cunque voluerint, et mineram ad fodiendum per totum territor- 
ium." Here both smelting and common smiths' work are contemplated. 
Kimberworth adjoins Rotherham. Chaucer in " The Reve's Tale " 
describes the miller at Trumpington as wearing a "Sheffield thwitel " 
(knife) in his hose. William Reresby had been a student at Oxford for 
three years, while Rector of Ashover, under a license of non-residence 
for the sake of study. Towards its conclusion he had been instituted 
to the benefice of Thryberg, in plurality with Ashover (1437). 



CHAPTER II.J EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. I7 

Maid of Orleans and the widening grasp of France, news 
of the exploits of John Talbot, of Sheffield Castle, the 
Bayard of his day, would come from time to time from 
over sea. Meanwhile there was a train of events attached 
to the neighbouring fief of Conisborough, which kept the 
nature of the claim, which the house of York was a few 
years afterwards to prefer to the throne of England, 
especially vivid to Rotherham men. After the death of 
the last of the Warrennes, the fief of Conisborough with 
its great Keep and Castle (still a majestic ruin) was 
granted to Edmund of Langley, fourth son of Edward III., 
who, by his subsequent title of Duke of York, is the 
founder of the line of York. No claim to the crown 
could ever be advanced on the ground of this male 
ancestry against the House of Lancaster, whose right 
through John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward, was 
indisputably superior ; the elder son of Edmund, who 
followed his father in the title, served Henry V. loyally, 
and fell, pressed to death in the melee at Agincourt. 
The younger son, however, Richard of Conisborough, 
afterwards Earl of Cambridge, made a marriage, which 
not only led him to rebellion and ruin, but was the 
governing incident in the subsequent struggle of the 
houses, and the substantial base of the claim of York. 
This marriage was with Anne, sister of Edmund Mortimer, 
Earl of March. When Henry IV. was set on the throne, 
the heir in strict lineal descent was this Edmund Mortimer 
(then a boy of seven years old), as the grandson of 
Philippa, daughter and heiress of Lionel, Duke of 
Clarence (the second son of Edward HI.) During the 
reign of Henry IV. he had been kept in some gentle kind 
of imprisonment ; but one of the early acts of Henry V. 
was to release him. Then Richard of Conisborough, his 
brother-in-law, along with Sir Thomas Grey, of Heton, 



l8 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

and Lord Scrope, of Masham, made a conspiracy to set 
Edmund or else Thomas.de Trumpington, who pretended 
to be the dead King Richard 11. , on the throne. It was 
discovered ; and just before Henry V's embarkation to 
France, Richard was tried by his peers, and beheaded. 
Readers of Shakespeare's Henry V. will remember the 
fine use of this incident as a sign of the changed character 
of the King, in the opening of the play. It must have 
been deeply impressed on the minds of Conisborough 
and Rotherham people. Edmund Mortimer himself was 
pardoned, and lived until the third year of Henry VI., 
when he died childless. But by his death without issue, 
the full right of Edmund to the throne descended to 
the son of his sister Anne, the wife of Richard of 
Conisborough ; and her son was no less a person than 
the great Richard, Duke of York (father of Edward IV.), 
who revived the claim, and fell in the battle of Wakefield, 
1460. Of course that beginning of the Wars of the Roses 
lies far in advance of the time of which we are treating — 
the boyhood of Thomas Rotherham ; but the history of 
the fief of Conisborough and of Richard's attainder would 
make the claim of the House of York, which is to us 
such an intricate piece of genealogy, comparatively clear 
and easy to the neighbourhood. We may add one further 
remark about the matter. Although the fief of Conis- 
borough came to Richard, Duke of York, and so in a 
few years afterwards was once more, as in the olden 
days of Harold, a fief of the King (Edward IV.), we 
must not think of Richard as resident at Conisborough 
in Rotherham's boyhood, though he may have visited 
it occasionally. For the castle was the favourite seat 
of the Duke's step-mother, Maud Clifford. A much more 
familiar figure there perhaps was her nephew and godson, 
the "black-faced Clifibrd," on whose memory the murder 



CHAPTER II.] EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. I9 

of Rutland, the boyish brother of Edward IV., at 

Wakefield, has left so dark a stain.* 

" In the town," Thomas writes, " was a 

■E^J^ly teacher of grammar, who came to Rotherham 

ion. , J know not what chance : but I believe 
The TcSiCher 

„ „ that it was by the Grace of God he came 

01 urrammar. -^ 

thither ; and he taught me and other youths, 
whereof others with me reached higher stations." The 
words indicate not a native of the place, but a new-comer, 
who set up a school, which drew to itself the sons of 
the gentry around. f Hunter the antiquarian, looking over 
the South of Yorkshire, which he has studied so minutely, 
singles out the three Blythes of Norton, two of whom 
became bishops, Henry Carnebull, Archdeacon of York, 
afterwards Rotherham's executor, and perhaps Rokeby of 
the family of Thundercliffe Grange, who, though not till 
after Rotherham's death, became Archbishop of Dublin 
(1512), as among those that " reached higher stations." 
There may however have been others also who were not 
ecclesiastics in Rotherham's mind : and Rokeby at any 
rate seems to have obtained eminence too late to have 
been intended. It is plain that Thomas looked back on 
this teacher as a great Scholar, to whom he owed the 
first impulse toward that learning for which he was 
himself so conspicuous in after life : his gratitude to him 
was very deep, and took a noble form. The Grammar 
School at Rotherham might well erect a statue to this 
nameless teacher of grammar, whose dim figure will cross 
our pages again in a later chapter. For the Grammar 

* Hunter's "Deanery of Doncaster," vol. i., pp. 112 — 113. The 
murder of Rutland is a pathetic incident in Shakespeare's picture of the 
Battle of Wakefield. Henry VI., Part in., Act. i., Scene in. 

t Guest, p. 136. The house of the Teacher of Grammar was ap- 
parently (see note N) part of the subsequent site of the College. 



20 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

School is the child of " the College of Jesus," which 
Thomas founded at Rotherham in his later years ; and 
the foundation stone of the College of Jesus was 
Thomas's gratitude to the old teacher of grammar, is- 
suing in the desire that others in his native place should 
have the boon that had made him great and happy. 
" With others ... we were without letters," he says in 
the Statutes of the College of Jesus, " and we should 
have remained so untaught and unlettered and rude to a 
greater age, but that by the grace of God a man learned 
in grammar came, by whom as from the first fountain 
we were instructed — God willing and (as we believe) 
providing us a training, we have come to the estate in 
which we now are, and many others have come to great 
things. Therefore desiring to return thanks to the Saviour, 
and that we may not seem ungrateful nor shew ourselves 
unmindful of the benefits of God and whence we came, 
we have determined to cause a like fountain to flow 
there, that is, to establish a teacher of grammar there 
forever."* Our conception of Rotherham's character will 
remain, do what we will, far too shadowy. But this 
monument to the teacher of his childhood is perhaps the 
most salient instance of one characteristic which his life 
exemplifies, — tender remembrances of past mercies, fruitful 
in munificent returns for the benefit of posterity. 

How long Thomas Rotherham remained at 
Possible home under the tuition of the teacher of 

Education at ^.i. • ^.i, • i. i. t^u 

grammar there is nothmg to shew. The 
Eton, and ^ . , . ^ . , . 

even next known event m his life is his admission 

Winchester, as a scholar at King's College, Cambridge, 

at the age of twenty, in 1443. In the general 

history of Cambridge entrance at King's would carry with 

* Guest, pp. 106 — 107. 



CHAPTER II.] EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. 21 

it a previous education at Eton : and the Eton historians 
accordingly claim him as an Etonian.* This, however, 
is by no means to be assumed as a certainty at that 
embryo period of the two foundations, and in Rotherham's 
case there are special reasons for doubt. If he was there, 
the longest period possible for his stay is not more than 
about two years ; and it is just possible that before this 
Eton time, he may have been at Winchester, from which 
the first Provost of Eton, William of Waynflete, brought 
thirty-five scholars as the nucleus of the new foundation. t 
It is quite likely, however, that (if he was there at all) 
his stay was much shorter. When Bishop Bekynton 
was consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells, in the old 
church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Eton, October 13, 
1443, after celebrating mass under a pavilion erected over 
the place where Henry VI. had laid the foundation stone 
of the new chapel at Eton (which was still not half 
finished), he held a banquet in the new building of the 
college on the north side of the chapel (the oldest building 
of all), which had at that time not been divided into 
chambers. I It is clear therefore that at this date there 

* See Harwood, in the " Alumni Etonenses," and Sir E. Creasey in 
" Eminent Etonians." 

t Maxwell Lyte, in his '* History of Eton College," gives the date of 
Henry VI. 's Charter for the Foundation as Oct. 11, 1440. It was not 
however confirmed by Pope Eugenius until 1441. This therefore seems 
the earliest date at which William of Waynflete could have been ap- 
pointed Provost. A letter dated June 12, 1442, from Bishop Bekynton 
shows that there was at that time a Provost of Eton. He commended 
himself to " the King's most high and noble grace and also unto the 
Provost and (illeg) of the holy and devout King's College of Oure Lady 
of Eton." See letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou and Bishop 
Bekynton and others. Camden Society, pp. 72 — 73. 

X Registrum Reverendi in Christo patris et Domini Thomse de Bekyn- 
ton .. . qui consecratus fuit ... in veteri ecclesia Collegiata 
Beatas Mariae de Etona die xiii° mensis Octobris 1443 . . . post 
consecrationem suam in nova ecclesig beatae Mari^ ibidem nondum 



22 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

was no accommodation for any scholars. It was not until 
the following December that Bekynton came down again, 
and installed William of Waynflete in the seat in the 
choir of the chapel, and administered the oaths to the 
Fellows, Clerks, Scholars, and Choristers ; the full number 
of each of these grades being incomplete.* But Rother- 
ham had entered King's College in July. 

It is not the fact, however, that in 1443, 

His Educa- Eton was the exclusive seed-plot of King's 

tion at Eton College. The first scheme of Henry VI. for 

^° ^ King's College, for a Rector and twelve 

certainty. , ,. , , 

scholars, did not contemplate any connexion 

between Eton and King's. Previous to the admission of 

Rotherham, and the others admitted on the same day, 

there were only six members on the foundation besides 

the Provost, none of them from Eton. It was not until 

the very year of Rotherham's entrance (1443) that Henry 

framed the larger Charter, under which there were to be 

a Provost, seventy-four scholars, ten priests, and sixteen 

choristers ; and that, in imitation of William of Wykeham's 

Colleges at Winchester and Oxford, the vital connexion 

between Eton and King's was ordained. And there are 

reasons for doubting whether this statute was put into 

force at this early time. If, indeed, we could rely on 

the very early catalogue at King's, begun by Thomas 

Hatcher in 1555 and continued by him until 1562, it 

was. For, after the names of the Provost and the six 

semi-constructce sub papilione ad altare erectum directe super locum, 
ubi Rex Henricus Sextus posuit lapidem primam in pontificalibus celebravit 
Missam. Et in nova fabricia Collegii ibidem ex parte boreali, dum 
adhuc camerse non erant condistinctas subtus, tenuit convivium. — 
Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton : edited by George Williams, 
vol. I., p. 120. 

* See " History of Eton College," by H. C. Maxwell Lyte, p. 21, 



CHAPTER II.] EARLY SCHOOL DAYS. 23 

original fellows, he places before the names of Rotherham 

and the other new scholars a note, saying, " Here follow 

those who came from Eton." In regard to one of the 

names, however, this note is certainly wrong. John 

Chedworth, afterward Provost, is known to have come, 

not from Eton, but from Merton, Oxford. The condition 

of things at Eton, which we have noted, may have made 

it impossible or undesirable as yet to get a supply 

from thence. There is a further reason for doubt in 

Rotherham's case, arising from the fact that William 

Millington, the Provost of King's, a native of PockHngton, 

in Yorkshire, was said to have shown favouritism to 

Yorkshiremen ; and of the five men admitted together 

at that date, Rotherham is the only one mentioned as 

coming from the County of York. Millington resigned 

the Provost-ship in 1446, on the very ground that he 

would not subscribe to the new statute ; he strongly 

objected to the restriction of the scholarships at King's 

to Eton.* 

Building upon this uncertainty, Anthony 

Anthony Wood has even claimed Rotherham, as 

Wood's claim being, previous to his entrance at King's 

of Rotherham Cambridge, an Oxford man. His arguments 

are drawn from the unusual treatment (in 
Oxonian. 

his view) of Rotherham, when he was given 

* The assertion of Millington's favouritism to Yorkshiremen is made 
in the life of him in Harwood's " Alumni Etonenses." The account of 
his objection to the new statute and removal to Clare Hall, is found 
at large in the Cambridge Antiquarian Communications, vol. i., pp. 185 — 
189. In the earliest register of all at King's College, knovs^n as the 
Inventory of 1452, there is no note similar to the one in Hatcher. The 
names of the Provost and the six original members are followed by 
those of the group admitted with Rotherham without a break. The 
names of the others are, John Langport, from Hampshire ; Richard 
Cove, from Wilts ; John Chedworth, from Gloucestershire ; and Robert 
Dummer, whose county is not stated. 



24 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

an ad eundem D.D. degree at Oxford, and from a letter 
in the Archives of Oxford University to a Bishop of 
Lincoln, whom he identifies with Rotherham. This claim, 
however, was disputed warmly by Cole, the Cambridge 
Antiquarian, and is (as any reader who cares to follow 
the controversy in our note will probably agree) untenable.! 

t See Note C on Anthony Wood's Claim of Rotherham as an 
Oxonian. 







W3 J3 

.5 S 
go 



o 



^3 i 



O O 



w-s 



CHAPTER III. 
LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE. 

Different sight 
Those venerable Doctors saw of old, 
When all who dwelt within those famous walls 
Led in abstemiousness a studious life ; 
When, in forlorn and naked chambers cooped 
And crowded, o'er the ponderous books they hung 
Like caterpillars eating out their way 
In silence, or with keen devouring noise, 
Not to be tracked or fathered. Princes then 
At matins froze, and couched at Curfew time. 

" The Prelude," Book 3. — Wordsworth. 

MedicBval Cambridge — The Monastic Buildings — The 
Gollege Buildings — The Buildings of the University — The 
Buildings of King's College — The Original Chapel at King's 
— Old College Booms at King's — Studies — Felloivship — Holy 
Orders. 



TN 1443, Thomas was admitted scholar of 
Mediaeyal i j^^^^.g College, Cambridge,* a very dif- 
ferent Cambridge and King's from the present. 
The town was gathered mainly into an irregular oval, 

* The entry in the Inventory of 1452 in the Muniment Room at 
King's College (the earliest register) gives the name " Thomas Rother- 
ham de com Ebor." The register begins with the names of those known 
to have been admitted by Henry VI., and then, without any break or 
note, those of the five others, John Langport, Richard Cove, John 
Chedworth, Robert Dummer, and Rotherham follow. A note in a 
smaller hand, but apparently of the same date, says, in regard to 
these — A° xxi. Regis Henrici Sexti admissi in sco. die Veneris prox. 
post festum reliqu. Relic Sunday was the third Sunday after Mid- 
summer day. As Henry VI. came to the throne in August, 1422, the 
year will be 1443. 

C 



26 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

bounded on the west by the river and on the east by 
the chord of the King's Ditch, which was bent from a 
point on the river, a little above Magdalene round the 
east of Sidney Sussex, and the west of St. Andrew 
the Great to the river at Mill Street. It was a town of 
wood and timber houses with gables of thatch. The 
streets were narrow, unlighted, ill-paved, and often noisome 
with heaps of refuse.* Little lanes ran down from the 
principal street to the rough wharves on the gardenless 
river. The heart of the town v/as the Market-place (then 
much smaller), with its Guildhall, its fountain, stocks, and 
pillory. The inns, in which the town was rich, and the 
trades were in close proximity to it. Sown thick within 
and around the town were the churches, and the monastic 
and university settlements. Five at least of the churches 
of that time have been either removed or rebuilt. Later 
Decorated and Early-perpendicular work would then look 
fresh and recent. The aisles at St. Botolph, St. Clement, 
and St. Edward, and the transepts at Holy Trinity were 
as yet not built. The buildings which have received the 
least amount of structural alteration would be St. Michael, 
St. Mary the Less, the little Abbey church, and the 
tower of St. Benedict. The most notable absence would 
be the present church of Great St. Mary.f 

* "Cambridge described," by T. D. Atkinson, pp. 61-79. An Act 
of 35 Henry VIII. describes the town as very sore decayed in pavyng, 
and the high stretes and lanes . . . exceedingly noyed wyth fylth 
and myre lying there in great heapes and brode plasshes not onely 
noysom comberouse . . . but also very perillous and tedious to all 
suche persones as shall on Horseback convey or cary anything with 
carts by and through the sam. — Ibid, p. 40. 

t These details are drawn from " Cambridge described," pp. 124 — 170. 
Mr. Atkinson mentions a church called All-hallows by the Castle, with- 
out any description of it. All Saints in the Jewry occupied a different 
site to that of the present church ; St. Giles, St. Andrew the Great, 
St, Peter and St. Mary the Great are re-built on the old sites, The 



CHAPTER III.] LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE. 1'] 

Through their impropriation of the benefices, 
Monastic as well as through their number, the re- 
Buildings, ligious orders had a strong position in the 
place. The largest house was the Priory of 
Augustinian Canons at Barnwell ; it had seven of the 
churches. Augustinian Canons also served the Hospital 
of St. John which then occupied the site of St. John's 
College. At Jesus, the choir and cloister court of what 
was then the Benedictine Nunnery of St. Radegund still 
remain. The Hall and Butteries at Emmanuel are the 
remains of the house of the Dominican Friars. Sidney 
Sussex is built on the site of the house of the Franciscans. 
The Carmelites were settled in the grounds to the north 
of Queen's College. The Austin Friars occupied the 
space now covered by the laboratories. The buildings of 
Buckingham College, which form the first court at 
Magdalene, are of rather later date ; but its foundation, 
as a hostel for the Benedictine students at Cambridge 
from the monasteries of Ely, Croyland, Ramsey, and 
Walden, dates a few years earlier than Rotherham's 
arrival.* 

The buildings of the religious houses were 
The College ^^-^ of greater dignity than those connected 

with the University. The mass of the students, 
especially the wealthy ones, were housed, not in Colleges 
but in the freer and perhaps more comfortable hostels. 
A century or perhaps more was to pass before the 
College was to become the rule and staple of University 
life. During the dynasty of Lancaster no College had 
been founded until Henry V. began his great foundation 

aisles at St. Edward's were added soon after Rotherham's arrival to 
accommodate Clare Hall and Trinity Hall, which had previously used 
the church of St. John Zachary : that stood on part of the site of the 
present chapel of King's College. 

* " Cambridge described," chap, viii., p. 179 et seq. 



28 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

at King's. The buildings in the group of 14th-century 

Colleges had grown irregularly from humble beginnings: 

only one of them — Corpus Christi — had at its foundation 

that quadrangular form to which Peterhouse, Clare, 

Gonville Hall and Trinity Hall gradually attained. The 

chapels had not the dignity of those in the religious 

houses : Peterhouse and Corpus had no chapels at all. 

The stately courts and chapels at King's and Trinity 

were of course unbuilt. The site of Trinity was occupied 

by the smaller buildings of St. Michael's and King's 

Hall, and seven hostels. Of the great gateways at St. 

John's and Trinity, one alone, now removed to the West 

of Trinity College Chapel from its site as part of King's 

Hall, was then in existence. Of the size and scale 

of the College buildings the old quadrangle at Corpus 

is the most perfect illustration.* The great devotion of 

money, lands, benefices, and ultimately the spoil of the 

monasteries was still in the future. 

As for the buildings of the University 

^^® itself, distinct from those of the colleges 

m mgs ^^j hostels, it is almost startling to be 
of the 
University told, that leaving out of consideration some 

obscure and dilapidated building, the one 
structure of any note (used as a chapel for the com- 
memoration of its builder and benefactors of the University, 
and for the deliberations and ceremonials of the Senate) 
was the north range of the present University Library. 
The western range was at Rotherham's arrival nearly 
completed : the south range was to follow : the eastern 
range was to be finished in the Chancellorship of 
Rotherham himself.f 

* Ibid, pp. 35 — 36, 244 — 249 ; chaps, xiii., xiv., xviii. 

t Ibid, pp. 270—273 ; 284, 352 — 3. See also " Architectural History 
of Cambridge," by Willis & Clark, vol. i., pp. 321 — 326, 



CHAPTER III.] LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE. 1$ 

Quite as sharp a contrast with present 

'^^^ conditions were the buildings of King's 

1 mga College. Not a foot of the present courts 
Kind's 
College ^^^ lawns then held the dwellings of the 

infant Society. It was housed in the little 

western court of the present University Library, which 

was sold in 1829 by King's College in order to afford 

increased library accommodation. The area of this court 

was the same as it is now. Speaking generally, the 

southern and western ranges of it bear on the inner side 

much resemblance to the appearance it presented during 

Rotherham's residence. They were however restored from 

a state of great ruin by Sir Gilbert Scott, and the upper 

story on the western side was then for the first time really 

completed. On the outer side the turrets at intervals on 

the front have been taken away. The chief ornament of 

these sides is the very graceful gateway, with the treasury 

over it, only finished in old days to the top of the 

second story : the first stone of its southern turret had 

been laid by King Henry VI. himself in 1441. When 

Rotherham arrived the building of the court would still 

be proceeding. The eastern side presented only the wall 

face of the rising range of the Schools, and did not 

belong to the college. On the north side of the court 

towards its eastern end stood the Hall, entered by a 

picturesque wooden porch, and with a narrow yard behind 

it. The rest of the north side was occupied by a timber 

house containing the butteries, the parlour in which the 

Bursars dined, and the kitchen lighted by two large 

windows. Over the Bursars' pa-lou' '^?.s the ?w^\t roon. 

We must not associate tiie gtcai cna.^'A 

. . with the worship of Rotherham during his 

«, . Cambridge days : nor was any part of it, 

except the side chapels, probably ever used 



30 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

for worship in his whole lifetime. The first stone of it 
was not laid until three years after his coming (1446). 
The work of erection proceeded slowly, and then was 
stopped in the troublous days of the Wars of the 
Roses : in the last year of his reign Henry VII. began 
to build with great energy, and to him is due the de- 
coration of roses and portcullis which covers the fabric. 
The chapel was only completed in the reign of 
Henry VHL, who gave the sumptuous stained glass. 
Meanwhile the chapel of Rotherham's days was some 
humbler structure situated between the court and the 
present chapel, and approached through an archway and 
passage called Cow Lane. It was perhaps only intended 
for temporary use, as it is said to have fallen down at 
the time when the great chapel began to be used for 
worship.* 

When Rotherham came up there were, as 
Old College ^g have seen, only eleven members of the 

„. ^, college besides the servants and choristers : 

King's. " 

and the buildings were incomplete. When 

these were finished and the number of all the ofl&ces 
filled, the lodgings of the scholars were mainly on the 
ground floor of the southern and western ranges, four 
scholars in a room. The two upper storeys were occupied 
by the Fellows, two in a room. The inner turrets con- 
tained the staircases. The rooms in the ground story 
would have clay floors, those in the upper story would 
be open to the roof; the windows would be half-glazed, 
half-shuttered. Attached to the rooms were small closets 
about five feet wide by four, used as studies. The beds 
would be in some cases trundle beds, which could be 
pushed aside in the daytime. The furniture would 

* " Cambridge described," pp. 353, 360 — 1. Willis & Clark, vol. i., 
P- 534- 



CHAPTER III.] LIPE AT CAMBRIDGE. 3 1 

consist of a table, some stools or settles, a cupboard, 

and a few shelves for books, a leaden water cistern, 

and a trough for washing. The suffering from cold 

must often have been great, as there was no fire-place.* 

In this little court at King's, Thomas 

^ ^®^' Rotherham spent probably the next fourteen 
Fellowship, -,.,.. ^ ., ,.. 

H 1 d years of his life. One of the authorities of 

his life makes him remove as Fellow to 

Pembroke Hall : but this is probably a mistake. t When 

he came up in 1443 he was, as we have seen, 20 years 

old, and may have already received the first tonsure. 

He was not therefore one of the mere boys of the 

University, ready for fun and fights and mischief, and 

getting at times a whipping over the barrels in the 

buttery, or a day in the stocks in the hall, or a public 

flogging in the presence of the whole College, for town 

rows, bathing or fishing in the rivers, flying falcon or 

hawk, shooting wild birds in the fen, and other breaches 

of discipline.! He would take life seriously. The great 



* " Cambridge described," pp. 256 — 257. Willis & Clark, vol. i., 
pp. 329 — 330. The full foundation at King's College was for 70 poor 
scholars, 10 priests, 6 clerks, and 16 choristers. 

f In " The Life of Rotherham," in " Godwin de praesulibus Anglise" 
it is asserted that he was Fellow of Pembroke Hall. Wrenn however 
in his account of the Masters of Pembroke (Wrenn MSS. at Pembroke) 
discredits the assertion as inconsistent with the oath taken on admis- 
sion to King's : and Cole, pointing out the fact that Rotherham was 
chosen along with Walter Field in 1457 by King's College to present 
Woodlarke the Provost to the living of Kingston, thinks that he must 
certainly have been then Fellow of King's. See Guest, p. 8g, quoting 
Cole & Richardson's edition of Godwin, p. 6g8. 

I See " Cambridge described," pp. 262 — 268. In an inventory of the 
furniture in the hall at Trinity one item is " A Payr of Stockes above 
the Serene." A significant part of the inception of a " master in 
Gramer" was the flogging of a boy, who was given a " grote" for his 
pains, "openly in the scolys," with the rod and palmer (ferule), then 
delivered to the inceptor. 



32 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

parchment manuscripts, which he had to study (printed 
books being not yet) would be things treated with rever- 
ence, instead of being slobbered over, dogs-eared, and 
handled with dirty fingers." His studies would be in 
grammar, theology, philosophy, the works of the school- 
men (Anselm, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus), books on the 
Lollard controversy, and probably canon law. Patristic 
literature would not be fully represented. Greek and the 
breath of the new classical learning was not to reach 
Cambridge until Erasmus lectured there in the following 
century. t The great guide and stimulus of study lay in 

* Lord Campbell in his " Lives of the Chancellors" has some amusing 
extracts from a book called ' Philobiblon,' written by a Chancellor 
named Richard de Bury (circa 1334), about the dirty habits of scholars 
over books. " You will see a stiff-necked youth lounging sluggishly in 
his study, while the frost pinches him in winter-time : .... his 
watery nose drops .... moistening the book with its vile dew. 
For such an one I would substitute a cobbler's apron in the place of 
his book. He has a nail like a giant's, perfumed with stinking ordure, 
with which he points out the place. He distributes straws in various 
places with the ends in sight, that he may recall with the mark what 
his memory cannot retain. He is not ashamed to eat fruit and cheese 
over an open book, and to transfer his empty cup from side to side. 
He never ceases to chatter .... and waters the book spread out 

on his lap with his saliva He reclines with his elbows on 

the book, and by a short study invites a long nap .... by way 
of repairing the wrinkles, he twists back the margins of the leaves. 
. . . . He stuffs his volume with firstling violets, roses, and quadre- 
foils. He will apply his wet hands oozing with sweat to turning over 
volumes .... or hunt over the page line by line with his fore- 
fingers covered with dirty leather. Then as the flea bites, the holy 
book is thrown aside : which however is scarce closed once in a month, 
and is so swelled with the dust that has fallen into it, that it will not 
yield to the efforts of the closer." Vol. i., pp. 197 — ig8. 

t Mr. Bass Mullinger in " The University of Cambridge from the 
earliest times," describes King's College as designed by the statutes for 
" poor and needy scholars " : they must wear the first clerical tonsure, 
be of good morals, sufficiently instructed in grammar, of honest con- 
versation, apt to learn, and desirous of advancing knowledge. The 
ordinary course of study was to be theology, the arts, and philosophy. 
Two xMasters of Arts of superior ability might study civil law; four 



CHAPTER III.] LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE. 33 

the public disputations on the subjects of the course 
provided by the University and the College, which he 
was bound to attend. The earliest date at which he 
could possibly have passed from the grade of scholar to 
that of Fellow would be 1446, which was also the date 
at which the first Provost Millington gave way to his 
contemporary friend John Chedworth. In 1452 Chedworth 
was elected to the See of Lincoln, and succeeded as 
Provost by another friend of Rotherham, Robert Wood- 
larke. Meanwhile Rotherham would have become a B.D.,* 
and have passed from the lowest orders — those of ostiarius, 
lector, and acolyte, usually taken at the same time — to 
the Sub-Diaconate, Diaconate, and Priesthood.! 

canon law ; two medicine ; two astronomy, providing that they observe 
the limits imposed by the Provost (a safeguard in view of astrology). 
He has an interesting analysis of the old catalogues of books. Besides 
those in the text he mentions as common, Grosseteste, Hugo de St. 
Victor, Nicholas de Lyra. He remarks on the absence of Arabian 
commentators on Aristotle. Among the fathers, Ambrose, Gregory, 
Jerome, Augustine are only partially represented, pp. 308, 309, 369. 

* See in regard to Rotherham's D.D. degree, ' Note D. on Rother- 
ham's Degrees.' 

t " It is not until after a three years' probation, during which time 
it has been ascertained whether the scholar be ' ingenio capacitate 
sensus moribus conditionibus et scientia dignus habilis et idoneus ' for 
further study, that the Provost and Fellows were empowered to elect 
him one of their number." Bass Mullinger, p. 309. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FIRST PREFERMENTS OF ROTHERHAM. 

THE FIRST CRISIS of the WARS OF THE ROSES. 

BISHOP OF CARLISLE. 

In this seat of peace tumultous wars 
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound; 
Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny 
Shall here inhabit, and this land be called 
The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls. 
O, if you rear this house against this house, 
It will the wofullest division prove. 
That ever fell upon this cursed earth. 

Richard II., Act iv., Scene I. — Shakspeare. 

Botherham Provost of Wingham— Chaplain to the Earl 
of Oxford — The First Crisis of the Wars of the Boses — The 
Battles of Wakefield and St. Albans — Edward IV. made 
King — The Battle of Towton — The Execution of the Earl of 
Oxford — Preferments of Botherham — Bipple ; Prebends in 
Lincoln and Salisbury Cathedrals; St. Vedast, Foster Lane; 
Archdeaconry of Canterbury ; Provostship of Beverley. 



npHE first summons to work outside 

ProYost of Cambridge was an appointment to the 

Wingham. post of Provost of Wingham in Kent (1458). 

It was the beginning of a connection with 
that county, which was afterwards to be deepened by his 
tenure of the See of Rochester. Wingham was six 
miles from Canterbury, and Rotherham became an in- 
timate friend of the Prior and convent of Christ Church 
there. After his departure from Wingham, he still acted 
as a legal adviser to them : and his first speech as 
Chancellor, sent no doubt to Sellynge the prior, was 



CHAPTER IV.] FIRST PREFERMENTS OF ROTHERHAM. 35 

kept in the archives of the monastery. The connection 
of Sellynge with Brabourne and the possible introduc- 
tion of Rotherham to the Scot family there has been 
already noticed. More important however in reference 
to his future life is the close connection into which 
Wingham brought him with Bourchier, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, from whom he received the preferment : for 
the Manor of Wingham was a very ancient and valu- 
able possession of the Archbishops, divided by them into 
several smaller manors held under them by sub-infeuda- 
tion. The Archbishops occasionally resided in the manor 
house. Once or twice they had there entertained royalty, 
notably King John and Edward III. ; the proximity to 
Canterbury also enhanced the relation of the Archbishop 
to the Provost of Wingham. Wingham was one of those 
Collegiate churches which were disgracefully robbed by 
the Chantries Act. Originally a simple benefice, it was 
converted into a College by Archbishop Peckham (1282) 
on the ground that the benefice could not " be easily 
cultivated by one husbandman, nay further by the labours 
of two, from the great extent of the parish as well as 
its numerous population," and that '* its revenues" were 
" sufficient to furnish the payment of more labourers." 
It consisted of a Provost and six secular canons, named 
after places within the great manor, which furnished their 
endowment. Each of these canons had under him a 
vicar, as they were not obliged to continual residence. 
In Rotherham's time the number of the vicars were 
reduced to four, the income of a vicar being then only 
£^ a year. The income of the College at its suppression 
was ;^2o8 14s. 3d., and that of the Provosts £^€> 6s. 8d. 
The post of Provost was thus both dignified and fairly 
wealthy : and he could hold another benefice with it, as 
he was not obliged always to reside. The old stalls 



36 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

with their " misereres " still remain in the church. A 
cottage, the •' Dog " Inn, and the Post Office appear to 
be remains of the old buildings for the canons. The 
Provost's house however is gone. Rotherham held the 
Provost-ship until 1463. In his last Will he bequeathed 
to the College a chalice worth loos.* 

But of greater interest than the Provost- 
Chaplaincy gj^^p q£ Wingham is the brief appointment 

„ , „ which Rotherham held in this same period 

Earl of 

Oxford. ^^ Chaplain to the Earl of Oxford. The 

House of Lancaster had no more devoted 
servants than the Veres of Oxford. Even after the final 
wreck of the fortunes of the Red Rose at Tewkesbury, 
the younger Earl of Oxford carried on a series of raids 
along the southern coasts, which cost him eleven years' 
imprisonment. His father (Rotherham's patron) and his 
elder brother forfeited their lives in the cause of 
Henry VI. It was natural that the Earl should seek a 
chaplain among the distinguished sons of Henry's Col- 
lege. The time at Rotherham's disposal, apart from his 
residence at Wingham, would be spent in the Earl's 
suite. If he followed him to Court, he would mark there 
at first the advancing greatness of the Lord of Conis- 
borough, Richard Duke of York, who had been twice 
Protector of the realm during Henry's seizures of mental 
incapacity, and whose plans for a venture at the throne 
were rapidly maturing. There also he would see Elizabeth, 
daughter of Jacquetta Duchess of Bedford by her second 
husband, Richard Wydeville. In after years Rotherham's 
fortunes were to be linked closely with that fair woman, 

• See " The Chronicles of Wingham," by Arthur Hussey, chaps, iii., ix., 
especially pp. 46, 62, 71, 114— 117, 125, 148, and Guest, p. 141. I am 
much indebted to Mr. Hussey for other kindness in regard to the 
monastery at Christ Church. 



CHAPTER IV.] FIRST PREFERMENTS OF ROTHERHAM. 37 

as the Queen of Edward IV., and he was to suffer 
imprisonment and disgrace for his fidelity to her and 
her boy prince. Now, she was a staunch Lancastrian, 
lady of the bed-chamber to Margaret of Anjou, wife to 
John Gray, who was knighted at the second battle of 
St. Albans, and who died upon the field. She would be 
about seven and twenty ; and her two little sons, known 
afterwards as the Marquis of Dorset and Lord Richard 
Gray, would be playing often about her. 

Then came two memorable and fatal years : 

The First memorable in English annals as the first 

Crisis of the culmination of the Wars of the Roses ; 

., _ memorable to Yorkshiremen, because the 

the Roses. 

great battles which gave decisive victory 

first to the Red Rose and then to the White, were 

fought on the fields of the West Riding ; fatal to Henry 

in the loss of his throne ; fatal in the deluge of English 

blood that was shed in the conflict, and the ruthless 

attainders and executions — that of Oxford among the rest 

— which revenge, or terrorism exacted. And whatever 

were the incidents of Rotherham's life at this bloody 

period, it is impossible to conceive him as a happy 

nameless priest living apart from the tumult and peril, 

and uninstructed and unconcerned in the stake at issue. 

When the year 1460 opened, the star of 
The Duke York was in eclipse. An attack on Henry 
of York made ^^^ {^[\ed : the Duke of York with his 
„, allies the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick 

had fled from England ; they had been at- 
tainted in Parliament, and their estates confiscated. But 
Henry had consented to these severities with reluctance : 
and the operative force of the attainders against men so 
powerful in the divided realm might be uncertain. No 



38 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

part of the land became so full of unrest, disaffection, 
and seditious rumours, as Rotherham's county of Kent, 
which was in sympathy with the cause of York, and 
alert with continual reports of the strength of Warwick 
at Calais, and his capture of the King's vessels in the 
Channel. When Warwick landed (June 5) at Sandwich, 
Rotherham's own patron and diocesan Bourchier met 
the Earl and his father the Earl of Salisbury, in full 
pontificals with his cross borne before him, and gave 
them his blessing amid the shouts of the people : the 
army marched, growing as it went, through Wingham, 
and so perhaps under the eyes of Rotherham on London*. 
As the summer passed on, Rotherham would see the issue 
of that march. He would hear of the victory over the 
king's force at Northampton, the escape of Margaret, 
the capture of Henry. He may have been in the suite 
of Oxford, when the Earl was summoned to the Parlia- 
ment in London ; at which the attainders were reversed, 
the throne claimed by the Duke of York, and after 
elaborate deliberation a compromise effected, under which 
Henry should retain the crown for his life, the Duke of 
York being declared the heir to the throne instead of 
the son of Margaret. He may have seen the king, with 
the Duke of York at his side as heir-apparent, ride to 
St. Paul's on All Saints day (Nov. i) to offer his thanks- 
giving for the reconciliation in the State. 

**i -^^^ *^^ reconciliation was a mere lull in 

of Wakefield storm, as the tidings that would reach 

and Wingham that very winter terribly shewed. 

St. Albans. Margaret had never been a party to it : and 



* " Chronicles of Wingham," p. 67, quoting Hook's " Life of Bour- 
chier" in "The Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury." 



CHAPTER IV.] FIRST PREFERMENTS OF ROTHERHAM. 39 

on her side Percy with his Northumberland borderers, 
Dacre from Cumberland, the Nevilles from Westmore- 
land, and Clifiord from Craven mustered a power in 
the north, which was joined by the Earls of Somerset, 
Devon, and Wiltshire, and probably Oxford, from the 
south. It was in Yorkshire that the great strength of 
Salisbury (at Middleham) and the Duke of York also lay. 
So it was natural that the opposing armies should meet, 
as they did, in the West Riding, between Wakefield and 
the Duke of York's Castle at Sandal (December 30). 
A fatal battle for the White Rose : the poor boy Rutland, 
York's youngest son, butchered by Clifford ; York himself 
slain, and his bloody head, surmounted with a paper 
crown by Margaret, despatched to be impaled on the 
gates of the city of York ; the Earl of Salisbury exe- 
cuted at Pontefract. It was followed also by a further 
victory at St. Albans (Feb. 17, 1461), where the army 
of Margaret defeated Warwick; and where once again she 
rejoined her King who had been brought to the field in 
Warwick's custody. 

Then comes into view the lad of nineteen, 
Edward lY. ^^^ ^^ ^ ^^iWe will be Rotherham's kingly 

patron, Edward, Earl of March. His father's 
death has brought to him the title and the regal claim 
of York, fired by a fiercer hate of Margaret : and in a 
fortnight he is on Henry's throne. Already he has de- 
feated a Lancastrian force at Mortimer's Cross, near 
Ludlow. He joins the army of Warwick. The border 
army of Margaret has been disorganised by pillage. 
London has closed its gates against her, and she has to 
retreat into the north. Backed by Warwick, Edward 
enters London : the throne is offered him, and he is 
proclaimed King at Westminster (March 3). 



40 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. / 

Was that proclamation to be a thing of 

The Battle real enduring moment, or only another of 

of Towton. the phantoms of success with which the 

e xecu- years had been filled ? This was the ques- 
tion of the 
Earl of tion, which on Palm Sunday the supreme 

Oxford. struggle, the terrible carnage, the ruin of the 
cause of Lancaster decided in the Yorkshire 
battle-field of Towton.* On June 29, Edward was crowned 
at Westminster. A Parliament, filled with vengeful or 
with timorous men, was summoned : and its black record 
includes a wholesale enactment of attainders, confiscations 
and executions. Among them were those of John 
Vere, Earl of Oxford, and his son Aubrey Vere : and 
Rotherham may have received the last confessions of 
his patrons before they were beheaded on Tower Hill 
(February 22, 1462). 

The fall of the meek king, and the bloody 
Pre ermen b . death of his patron must have been matter 

Ripple; . , , t-. 1 , 

_ , J . 01 sorrow and alarm to Rotherham. His 
Frebends in 

Lincoln and ^^t)t of gratitude to Henry was very great, 

Salisbury and the tie with the Lancastrian Earl a 

Cathedrals; close one. He was identified by both with 

St. Yedast, ^j^g fallen fortune of the Red Rose, and in 

Foster Lane; ^^^^ ^j^^ ^^ forfeitures and attainders he 

Archdeaconry 

f Canterborv "^^S^* ^^^ *^^ moment think his future ad- 
vancement doubtful. There may however 

* The Battle of Towton was the bloodiest in the Civil Wars of 
England. A hundred thousand men are said to have been engaged — 
sixty thousand on the side of Lancaster. It began at nine in the 
morning, in a driving snow. By three in the afternoon it had become 
a rout of the enemy. The pursuit was continued through the rest of 
the day and night, no quarter being given. Numbers perished in the 
waters of the Cock. Knights, barons, and earls were among the slain. 
The loss of the Yorkists was severe, and in a letter to his mother, 
Edward said that his heralds had reported the losses of the enemy at 
twenty-eight thousand. (See Lingard). 



CHAPTER IV.] FIRST PREFERMENTS OF ROTHERHAM. 4I 

have been things in his favour, to which we have no 
clue, connected with his birthplace, and Edward's fief of 
Conisborough. Bourchier, too, who had thrown in his lot 
with Edward, was a friend. At any rate we have to 
trace his identification within a few years with the cause 
of York, of which he became a staunch and unwavering 
stay. Before the death of Oxford he had been appointed 
to the Rectory of Ripple in Worcestershire* (July 12, 
1461), holding it in plurality with Wingham until 1463. 
On October 9, 1465, his College friend Ched worth col- 
lated him to the Prebend of Welton Brinkhall in the 
Cathedral of Lincoln. f As early as June 5, 1465, 
Edward IV. had written to the Pope, Paul II., recom- 
mending Rotherham to him as successor to Bishop Low 
of Rochester, who was desirous of resigning his See 
from failing health. | This appointment however is not 
to take place quite yet. Immediately after this (July 20) 
comes an appointment to the Prebend of Netherhaven, 
in the Cathedral of Salisbury.§ Then on Feb. 13, 146!, 
he is presented by Archbishop Bourchier to the Rectory 
of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, London, l| which he resigned 
Dec. 5, 1467. In this year also he is mentioned as being 
Archdeacon of Canterbury.lF 

* Nash's " History of Worcestershire," vol. 11., p. 299. 

t Chedworth Register, Lincoln. 

\ Le Neve Fasti. Note in edition of Sir T. D. Hardy, vol. 11., p. 568. 

§ Guest, p. 90. 

II Bourchier's Register, Lambeth. Guest, p. 90. 

H William of Wyrcester Annales, vol. 11., p. 508. The name of 
Rotherham does not appear in the list of Archdeacons of Canterbury 
in Hasted's " History of Kent," or in Le Neve's Fasti. But Thomas 
Chichele, Provost of Wingham, v/ho was Archdeacon of Canterbury, 
died January 26, 1466. The next name to that of Chichele, in Hasted, 
is that of Wynterburn, who according to Le Neve was collated 
Sept. I, 1468. There is therefore just room for Rotherham's tenure. 
D 



42 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

One further appointment, though slightly in 
ProYost of anticipation of the chronological order, it 
BeYci'ley. will make the narrative clearer to mention 

here. In 1468, Thomas was appointed 
Provost of Beverley. He held it concurrently with the 
Bishopric of Rochester, until 1472. It was a post of 
some value and considerable dignity.* The duties were 
mainly secular — the stewardship of the manorial court, 
management of the estates, collection of rents and dues. 
The Provost was patron of the Collegiate advowsons. His 
most vexatious duty was the collection of the " thraves" : 
and the "thraves" are of more importance than usual, 
as connected with Rotherham, because a revolt against 
the exaction of them by the hospital of St. Leonard of 
York was the proximate cause of the Yorkshire peasant 
rebellion under Robin of Redesdale ; and this rebellion, in 

* The value of the Provost-ship at the time of the suppression was 
;^iog 8s. 8Jd. The College of St. John of Beverley stood third or fourth 
among the great religious houses in Yorkshire, nearly if not quite equal 
in wealth with Fountains Abbey. The revenue as given in the Chantry 
Certificates was ;£"823 12s. 2|d. Its foundation dated at least as early 
as the reign of Athelstan. It was a foundation of secular canons. 
The staff in Rotherham's time consisted of 77 persons, nine of whom 
were canons or prebendaries (one of these being the Archbishop of 
York ex-officie), three were dignitaries, nine vicars choral, fifteen chantry 
priests, the rest subordinates. Two features in the foundation are of 
special interest, as connected with Rotherham's own foundation, the 
College of Jesus. There was a "grammar school" taught by the 
grammar schoolmaster under the superintendence of the Chancellor ; 
and a " song school " taught by the Succentor, under the superintend- 
ence of the Precentor ; and the benefits of these schools were open, not 
only to members of the foundation, but to boys outside the College, 
without charge. See Beverlac, p. 953, and "Transactions of the East 
Riding Antiquarian Society," vol. 11., pp. 100—123, " The inmates of 
Beverley Minster." The successor of Rotherham in the Provost-ship 
was William Poteman, afterwards Treasurer of York Minster, and 
Rotherham's Vicar-General, when he became Archbishop of York. 
There are now no remains of the College buildings except the exquisite 
Minster. 



CHAPTER IV. FIRST PREFERMENTS OF ROTHERHAM. 43 

the year after Rotherham's appointment to Beverley, was 
the beginning of the great Civil War. The " thrave" is 
believed to have been the heap into which the sheaves 
of corn were collected on the field. The College of 
Beverley had by the gift of Athelstan a right to four 
thraves from every plough land in Holderness. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE 

ROSES. 

Father (who has slain his son in the battle) : 

What stratagems, how fell and butcherly, 

Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural, 

This deadly quarrel daily doth beget ! 

O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon, 

And hath bereft thee of thy life too late. 
King Henry : 

Woe above woe! Grief more than common grief! 

O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds : 

O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity ! 

The Red Rose and the White are on his face 

The fatal colours of our striving houses. 

Wither one Rose, and let the other flourish ! 
If you contend, a thousand lives must wither. 

Henry VI., Part Hi., Act II., Scene V. 

— Shakspeare, 

TliG Second Crisis in the, Wars of the Boses — Botherham 
Chaplain and Keeper of the Privy Seal to Edioard IV. — 
The Court of Edioard IV. — The Kifig-maher — Botherham 
Bishop of Bo Chester — Sole Ambassador to the King of France 
— The Marriage of Clarence — The Behellion of 1469 — 
Botherham Chancellor of Cambridge — The Flight of Wartuick 
— The King-maker enthrones Henry VI. — Botherham's Move- 
ments — The Beturn of Edioard — The Battle of Barnet and 
Death of Wanoick — The Battle of Teiokesbury and Death of 
Prince Edward of Lancaster — The Death of Henry VI. 



'T'HE next event in Rotherham's life 
The Second 1 marks his introduction at the Court 

* i.1. of Edward IV. into a world very different 
Wars of the ^ 

Roses. from that in which he has hitherto moved: 

and from his position in the king's counsels 

he was in the very centre of it. We can only sketch 



CHAPTER v.] LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 45 

the environment, not the incidents, of his life; and no- 
where is this more to be regretted, for historical as well 
as biographical reasons. The history of these years is 
full of broken, confused details : the secrets of intrigue, 
the extraordinary ebb and flow of fortune, the reasons of 
the disaffection of the realm, are full of perplexity. And 
our knowledge of Rotherham's character would be infinitely 
richer, if we possessed the detail of his conduct in these 
perilous years. The peril was great and many-sided. 
For he became the minister and favourite of a dissolute, 
false, rapacious, ruthless King: who in the four years 
which followed Rotherham's appointment passed through 
a series of supreme vicissitudes of battle, panic, im- 
prisonment, exile, fleeting recoveries, and ultimate victory, 
without a parallel in English history, — the Second Crisis 
in short of the Wars of the Roses. 

, . . . On the 28th Tuly, 1467, Rotherham was 
Appointment -' ^ . 

as Keeper of n^^de Keeper of the Privy Seal at a 

the Privy Seal salary of three hundred and sixty marks. 

and Chaplain ^le became also about the same time 
to Edward lY. 

Chaplain to Edward; the two offices bring- 
ing him into close personal relation to the King.* 

The first thing which would impress Rother- 
e ourt of j^g^jjj -j^ j^-g j^g^ surroundings would be the 

splendour and luxury of the Court, and the 
magnificent dress, the captivating grace of the reckless, 
indolent, majestic Kihg.f Only gradually would he learn 

* Patent Rolls 7, Edward IV. Guest makes the date 1468 ; but as 
Edward's reign dates from March 4, 1461, it must be 1467. 

t Philip de Commines considered Edward the goodliest man he had 
ever seen. Lord Lytton gives an elaborate description of the King's 
dress : " His gown flowed to his heels, trimmed with ermine, and em- 
broidered with large flowers of crimson wrought upon cloth of gold. 
Over this he wore a tippet ermine, and a collar or necklace of uncut 
jewels set in filagree gold. The nether limbs were it is true clad in 



46 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

the secrets of his policy, the steady elevation of the 
merchants of London, the king's own lucrative trading 
with the Flemish towns, and the vigorous watchfulness 
with which the powers of enrichment — inherent in the 
rights of escheat, wardship, marriage, resumption of 
estates, appointment to bishoprics, and bestowal of 
honours — were exercised for the increase of the royal 
revenue. He could scarcely have helped thinking of the 
similarity in change of fortune between himself and the 
Queen, whom, as we have seen, he may have met 
before in the suite of the Earl of Oxford, when she 
was lady of the bed-chamber to Margaret of Anjou. 
The great event, which was still the talk of the Court 
at the time of Rotherham's arrival, was the splendid 
tournament in which the chivalrous Anthony Wydeville 
(Lord Scales), the Queen's brother, had triumphed over 
the Count de la Roche, the Bastard of Burgundy. The 
Earl of Warwick was in France, commissioned by 
Edward to treat with Lewis XL regarding the matters in 
dispute between France and England. Reports reached 
the Court of the high honours with which Lewis was 
receiving him, and the intimate conferences between them. 

tight-fitting hosen, but the folds of the gown, as the day was somewhat 
fresh, were drawn around, so as to conceal the only part of the dress 
which betokened the male sex. His locks, of a rich golden colour, 
flowed straight to his shoulders." (' Last of the Barons,' book 11., 
chap. I.) In Edward's last Parliament however, over which Rotherham 
presided, the fashion of short mantles is mentioned. No one under the 
degree of a lord was allowed to wear any mantle, except it be of such 
a length that a man standing upright il lui voilera le queue (trans- 
lated, ' cover his buttocks.') The Rolls of Parliament have frequent 
sumptuary laws in Edward's reign. No man or woman under the 
estate of a lord might wear cloth of gold or furs of sables: no one 
below a knight might wear velvet, satin, or silk. The pikes of shoes 
and boots, says Stowe, were of such length that they were fain to be 
tied up to their knees with chains of silver, or at the least with silk 
laces. 



CHAPTER v.] LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 47 

The name of Warwick had been familiar 
to Rotherham from childhood, as lord of 
the manor of Kimberworth, which adjoined 
his native town. He may have seen him, when he 
marched through Wingham in 1460. But he was not to 
be brought into any prolonged personal contact with 
' The Last of the Barons.' For this mission in France 
brought up the first little cloud between the Earl and 
Edward, which was followed rapidly by the tempest in 
which The King-maker wrecked the throne he had 
created, and by Henry's restoration was a King-maker again. 
Rotherham would be about the King when Warwick 
returned from France. Edward had been by no means 
pleased at the almost royal honours which Lewis had 
accorded to his mighty subject : as a mark of displeasure 
he had taken away the seals from George Nevile, the 
Archbishop of York, Warwick's brother. The sensation 
at Court would be intense, when Edward received the 
Earl with coolness on his return, broke with his policy 
of friendship with France, and treated the French Am- 
bassador with neglect. Warwick retired in angry dis- 
content to his castle at Middleham ; and the months 
which ensued brought him growing proof of his loss of 
power with the throne, along with affront to his haughty 
spirit which led him to the verge of rebellion. For the 
moment however, through the mediation of the Arch- 
bishop of York and the father of the Queen, the rupture 
was averted. The great pageant in the streets of London, 
held at the departure of Edward's sister, Margaret, for 
her bridal with the Duke of Burgundy, witnessed the 
public reconciliation with the King. It was behind 
Warwick that Margaret rode on her pillion in the pro- 
cession (June, 1468).* 

* This match had been specially hateful to him, not only on account 



48 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Some weeks before the pageant the King 
Rotherham ^^^ ^^^^^ j^jg g^^g^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^j Rother- 
Bishop of 
Soeheste ham's service. He had named him to the 

Pope for the Bishopric of Rochester before 
the appointment to the office of Privy Seal : but the 
cons;ecration only took place in 1468. We shall not give 
any details of his life as Bishop of Rochester until a 
later chapter. There is a curious provision in the 
license, that he may be consecrated * ellswhere than at 
Canterbury.' Probably there was some business of the 
King, which made Canterbury inconvenient.* 

The King's trust in his capacity is shewn 

Sole Ambas- j^ore signally in the appointment (Aug. i, 

„. _ 1468) of Rotherham as Sole Ambassador 

France. ^° ^^^ King of France.! We shall note 

him as Ambassador, along with others, to 

Lewis in a later year. But on this occasion he is sent 

alone. After what had passed, it might have been a 

delicate and not too pleasant a mission. But Lewis 

would probably receive him with his usual silkiness. In 

a few years' time Rotherham was to be one of the 

English pensioners of the French King. 

For the present, however, neither Rotherham 
The Marriage ^^^ Edward were to think about Lewis or 

of Clarence. s ■ or ■ -vu j 

any foreign affairs. There was renewed 

danger from Warwick. Clarence, Edward's brother, 

of his personal enmity with the Duke of Burgundy, but because it was 
an act of direct contradiction to his advocacy of friendship with Lewis. 
Margaret of Anjou was at the Court of Lewis ; an emissary of hers, 
who was seized in England, had told Edward that Warwick was con- 
sidered by the French as a secret partizan of the House of Lancaster. 
Warwick had been tried, and declared innocent of the charge, but a 
body-guard of two hundred archers had been placed about him at 
Middleham after the trial. 

* The date of the License is March 27. The Consecration Book at 
Rochester gives his Consecration as April 3. 
t Rymer's " Fcedera," vol. xi., p. 625. 



CHAPTER v.] LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 49 

wanted to marry Isabella, the Earl's eldest daughter: 
Warwick was well pleased at the prospect of such an 
alliance. Edward absolutely refused his consent. They 
defied him : the marriage was solemnized at Calais, of 
which Warwick was Governor. Soon afterwards the land 
was aflame with civil war. 

Thraves. — During the autumn and winter. 
The Rebellion Rotherham had been collecting these for 

the first time, as Provost of Beverley, 
from the plough-lands of Holderness. Probably the ex- 
action was not much less invidious there than in the 
plain of York. So he may not have been entirely sur- 
prised, that a disturbance had arisen in Yorkshire in 
consequence of an attempt by the Hospital of St. Leonard 
to levy them by distress. But it soon was evident that 
there were other grievances besides the thraves. No less 
than fifteen thousand men were in rebellion under one 
Robert Hilyard or Robin of Redesdale. They had ad- 
vanced on the city of York : but had been met and 
defeated by Montagu, Warwick's brother, their leader 
according to one account being executed. But the defeat 
had not dispersed the force, which moved southwards : 
and their leaders now are a Sir John Conyers*, and 
Lord Fitzhugh, the nephew, and Lord Latimer, the 
cousin, of Warwick. Intermixed also with their * bills 
of articles,' ' complaints and petitions ' about debasement 
of the coin, new and grievous impositions by forced 
loans, and heavy fines, which within the last year only 

* Mr. Gairdner in his " Life of Richard III." in the " Dictionary of 
National Biography," thinks that Sir John Conyers and Robin of 
Redesdale may be identical. Mr, Archbold, in his " Life of Robert 
Hilyard," distinguishes him from Robin of Redesdale, making Hilyard 
the Commander of the Yorkshire rising, and identifying Robin of 
Redesdale with Sir John Conyers. Lord Lytton represents Robin as 
alive long after this period. 



5© ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

had amounted to 200,000 marks (Lingard) — social wrongs 
with which Rotherham in his office must have had sad 
acquaintance — there appeared another demand, which looks 
like the grievance of the nobles rather than the com- 
monalty, the demand for the removal of the Queen's 
kindred, as the cause of the calamities of the people. 
This rebellion swells and spreads: the Queen's father, 
and his son Sir John Wydevile, are captured by the 
rebels and executed. Edward finds himself in extreme 
danger at Olney, from which Warwick rescues him. He 
is conducted by the Archbishop of York to the Earl, 
who has Clarence with him, at Coventry ; and from 
Coventry to Warwick's castle at Middleham, where for a 
time he finds himself virtually a prisoner. 

This troublous year brought Rotherham a 
Rotherham ^^^ honour, quite unconnected with the war. 

, . , No doubt on account of his high place in 

Cambridge. '^ , , . 

the King's favour, Cambridge elected him 

their Chancellor. It was the beginning of great bene- 
factions to the University, which will be best considered 
in the next chapter. The state of the King's business 
and the dangers of travel may have made any visit to 
it impossible as yet : Cambridge however was quite un- 
touched by the war. 

The thing which is most impressive in the 
The Flight rebellion of 1469 is the power of Warwick 
° * and the weakness of the King. But in the 

first half of the year 1470 this position is exactly re- 
versed. An insurrection, certainly connected with Warwick, 
breaks out in Lincolnshire. Edward marches to suppress 
it; meets the insurgents at Erpingham, and defeats them; 
learns that Warwick and Clarence are on their way to 
join the rebels ; follows them in their retreat to York- 
shire, then to Nottingham, and through England to 



CHAPTER v.] LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 5I 

Exeter. Warwick and Clarence are utterly unable to 
make any head against him, but simply fly through the 
land, embark at Dartmouth, and find refuge in France. 
_. The flight of Warwick marks the first climax 

King-maker ^^ this eventful time. The second climax, 
enthrones far more startling, but marked again with 
enry . ^j^^ same supreme revolution of victory and 
defeat between the King-maker and the King was rapidly 
to follow. For the moment Edward thought himself 
finally secure. As Lord Lytton pictures him : " The 
danger is past for ever," said King Edward, " rebellion 
hath lost its head — and now indeed and for the first 
time a monarch I reign alone." It is extraordinary that 
he should have so thoroughly undervalued the normal 
power of Warwick in England. Now also, whatever had 
been the case before, there was no doubt, as the Duke 
of Burgundy kept informing him, that Warwick, with 
Clarence also for the time, had thrown himself to the 
side of that House of Lancaster which he had dethroned : 
forgiveness of all the bloody past was sealed between 
him and Margaret by the marriage of Anne his daughter 
with young Edward her son : and, behind Margaret, was 
the active help of Lewis. From the round of indolent 
pleasure, which he had recklessly resumed, the King was 
roused by tidings of a rebellion in Northumberland under 
Lord Fitzhugh, and he marched at once to subdue it. 
By this lure the southern counties were left unguarded ; 
and Warwick, with Clarence, eluding the fleet of Bur- 
gundy, and protected by the fleet of Lewis, landed forces 
at Plymouth and Dartmouth, in September, 1470. From 
that point he marched onward unresisted to London, the 
men of Kent rising in his favour. The Queen fled to 
sanctuary at Westminster: Henry VL was once more 
proclaimed King, That done, the Earl marched north- 



52 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

ward to Nottingham, his army growing as he went. At 
Doncaster Edward realized that he was in imminent peril 
from the approach of his enemy. Six thousand men, who 
had worn the White Rose, had at the instigation of 
Warwick's brother, Montagu, cried 'God bless King 
Henry.' He mounted his horse and rode at once for 
Lynn, found there an English ship and two Dutch brigs, 
in which he embarked with a few noblemen and eight 
hundred followers; and after a narrow escape from pirates 
ran his ship aground at Alkmaar, where Grutehuse, the 
Governor of the province, received him hospitably, after- 
wards conducting him to the Duke of Burgundy at the 
Hague.* 

Of Rotherham's movements or abodes during 

Rotherham's these days of hazard we have not a single 

Movements j^int. He could hardly have ventured to go 

to Beverley. It is unlikely that he would 

of the ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ Edward in the field. In the 

Re-instated short interval after Warwick's flight he 

Henry YI. would resume the routine of his office at the 

Tower ; and when the King left for the 

north may have gone to his diocese. But the rising in 

Kent at Warwick's landing may have turned him to 

London : and when Warwick entered it, he may have 

thought it wiser, as a marked favourite of Edward, to 

take refuge with the crowd of Yorkists in sanctuary. 

Mr. Renat Scott says that, when the Queen fled there, 

Rotherham withstood the fury of the mob in order to 

protect her: but I have failed to verify this incident. 

At the time of the birth of the hapless little prince, 

whom we style Edward V. in the Tower there is no 

record of his presence. The child was baptized, says a 

* See the account in Lingard. 



CHAPTER v.] LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 53 

chronicler, ' as the son of a common man,'* the Abbot 
and Prior of Westminster standing as godfathers, and 
Lady Scrope as godmother. It is quite possible that 
Rotherham found it safe to retire to one of the houses 
of his diocese during the few months of Henry's re- 
instatement under the protectorate of Warwick and 
Clarence : for in marked contrast with Edward's vindictive- 
ness both after Towton and in the coming time, this 
brief reign of Henry was characterized by singular lenity 
to the defeated party of York. 

It was a short triumph for the Red Rose. 
The Return Margaret, with her habitual ill-fortune, was 

™, ^ ^^, \ hindered by adverse winds from ever sharing: 
The Battle of -^ ^ 

Barnet and ^^ ^* ^^^' ^^^ ^^^^V ^iphng brought once 
Death of more total, but this time final, revolution. 
Warwick. In the middle of Lent, 1471, Edward landed 
with about fifteen hundred men at Ravens- 
purn. It was the place where Henry of Bolingbroke had 
landed in 1399 : and the tactics which Edward employed 
were the same as those of Bolingbroke. " He had come," 
(so he gave out as he marched, directing his followers to 
cry * Long live Henry,') '' not to claim the crown but the 
estates of his duchy, which Henry's parliament had just 
given to his brother Clarence." He was only admitted 
into York after swearing at the gates, as he did a second 
time at the Minster, that he would make no pretension 
to the crown. He then turned southward, passed within 
four miles of Montagu's force, which could have over- 
whelmed him, and so on to Nottingham and Coventry, 
his numbers swelling steadily. At Coventry lay Warwick ; 
and with him Clarence, who had been long dissatisfied 
with his position under his father-in-law. Now he broke 



54 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

with him, and with all the force under his command 
joined Edward. Warwick, thus weakened, was unable to 
give battle: Edward passed him, and pressed on to 
London, where the gates were opened through the 
faithlessness of the Archbishop of York. Warwick, 
strengthened now by Montagu's forces, was following. 
Taking the poor King Henry with him, Edward marched 
back to meet them ; and at Gladsmoor, to the north of 
Barnet, on Easter Day, the great battle of Barnet took 
place. It was a confused, disorganized conflict, fought in 
a dense fog, which made friends and foes hard to dis- 
tinguish ; but as it raged its five hours' life, news came 
first that Montagu, and next that Warwick had fallen. 
That was enough. Edward re-entered London in triumph, 
met his Queen once more with her baby heir to the 
recovered throne, and sent poor Henry back to the cell 
he had occupied for so many years in the Tower. 

Still however, for the Red Rose there was 
The Battle of flickering hope. Too late to succour War- 
D th f wick, the winds permitted Margaret with 
Prince Edward ^^^ French auxiliaries to land at Weymouth. 
of Lancaster. When the news of Warwick's death reached 
her, she fled in despair with her son Prince 
Edward to the Abbey of Cerne: but the Lancastrian lords 
re-assured her ; if she would join the forces of the Earl 
of Pembroke in Wales they might yet succeed. At 
Gloucester however, they found the fortified bridge across 
the Severn barred against them. On Friday in Easter 
week Edward had left London. At Tewkesbury the 
armies met. The guns and archers of York did deadly 
execution. Gloucester and Edward stormed the Lancas- 
trian entrenchments, Lord Wenlock* falling in the onset. 

* See for the relationship of Wenlock to Rotherham '♦ Note (F) on 
Lord Wenlock and the Rotherhams of Someries." 



CHAPTER v.] LAST CRISIS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 55 

Margaret, like Henry, was soon in Edward's hands. The 
young Prince, Edward of Lancaster, bridegroom to Anne 
of Warwick, was done to death by Edward's knights, 
Edward himself smiting him in the face with his gauntlet 
(May 3). 

One last and dark catastrophe remained, now 

The Death of that the heir of Lancaster was dead, to 

Henry YI. make the victories complete. The meek 

King Henry, so long unfitted for a throne 
by his gentleness and his mental imbecility, found release 
from captivity. Some said he had died from grief. The 
Tudor historians, always keen to blacken the memory of 
the House of York, laid his murder at the door of 
Edward and Gloucester (May 21). 

This conclusive ruin of the cause of Lancaster was 
of course wholly welcome to so staunch a Yorkist as 
Rotherham had become, and yet surely the sight at 
St. Paul's of the body of that dead King, to whose 
munificence he owed the learning which had brought him 
to eminence, must have been a sad one to his humane 
spirit. How different had been these four years as 
Keeper of the Privy Seal, Chaplain to the King, or 
Bishop of Rochester from the peaceful times of Wing- 
ham and Ripple. In that last Will, in which bequests 
from him mark the sequence of his life, there is no 
special note of repentance attached to his gifts to Ripple 
or to Wingham ; but as he pens his legacy of ' ten 
pounds, besides the money given for building a library ' 
at Rochester, ' which he ruled at first,' he adds this 
touching plaint : • Would that the charge had been un- 
dertaken to the salvation of my soul ! '* 

* Guest, p, 141, 



CHAPTER VI. 

ROTHERHAM as CHANCELLOR of CAMBRIDGE 

AND FOUNDER OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, 

OXFORD. 

Oh ! Seat of Arts, renowned throughout the world ! 

" The Prelude.'" — Wordsworth. 

Botherham Bishop of Lincoln — Embassy to Charles the 
Bold — Chancellor ship of Cambridge — Benefactions to St. 
Katharine's, Kifig's College, and St. Mary s — Completion of 
the Schools — Lincoln College, Oxford — Grant of Four Pounds 
a Year to the College — Second Charter from Edward IV. 
Appropriation of Twyford and Long Combe — Gratitude of 
the College — Botherham named its Second Founder. 



npHE one certainty as to Rotherham in 
Embassy to 1 ^^^ ^he hazard of this period is that 

^ .^ he did not forfeit Edward's confidence. On 

Bold. ^ 

Bishopric of ■^^^' 9. HT^. he was appointed Ambassador, 

Lincoln. along with Lord Hastings and two others, 

to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy ; 

probably in connection with the war with France, which 

Edward began to contemplate as a revenge on Lewis.* 

On March 8 of this same year he was translated from 

Rochester to the much greater See of Lincoln.! 

* " Rymer Fsedera," vol. xi., p. 737. 

t Register of Bishop Rotherham at Lincoln : " Octavo die martii 
millesimo quadragintesimo Septuagesimo primo . . . Transl. rev' in 
Christo pris et dni Thome Rotherhm a sede Roffen ad eccHam Lincoln." 
Cole gives the date of the license to the Chapter at Lincoln to elect 
him as December 7, 1471. The temporalities were given to him 
March 10, 147^- 



CHAPTER VI.] AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C. 57 

Rotherham had been elected Chancellor of 
Chancellorship Cambridge in 1469. His first term of office 
ri ge. gj^(jg(j jj^ tjjg troublous year 147 1 ; but he 
Completion , ^ j • j i, J .r 

of the ^^^ re-elected m 1473, and held office, pro- 

Schools, bably by further re-election, until 1478. It 
is impossible, as will be made evident, that 
he could ever have resided much in Cambridge, but he 
certainly did. not neglect its welfare. The two young 
foundations of that time would naturally interest him. 
Queen's College had been founded in 1446, during his 
residence at King's, and placed by its founder, Andrew 
Doket, under the patronage of the unhappy young Queen, 
Margaret of Anjou. Its old court, which still remains, 
must have been a notable building in those days, when 
so few Colleges possessed a quadrangle built uniformly 
at a single date. But the College would appeal more 
strongly to the Chancellor of 1469 from the fact that 
four years earlier it had been placed under the patronage 
of a second Queen, Elizabeth, the wife of Edward IV. 
Midway in his second Chancellorship, another founda- 
tion was established by his old friend, Robert Wodelarke, 
the third Provost of King's. The original court, chapel, 
and library of St. Katherine's no longer are in existence ; 
but we know from Rotherham's Will that he contributed 
largely to the buildings.* In the accounts for the 
building of King's College Chapel, 1477-80, we find also 
a gift of ;^ioo from him. His arms also are carved on 
the tower of Great St. Mary's, for which his benefactions, 
either in his lifetime, or by his Will, amounted to the 



* " I also give and bequeathe to the New College at Cambridge, 
above and beyond the large sums paid and given for the building and 
repairing of the church there in the time of Mr. Arthur Wodelarke, my 
best red suit of cloth of gold, with six copes, and all things pertaining 
to the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon." Guest, p. 141. 

E 



58 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

same sum.* The great achievement however of his 
Chancellorship, for which up to the present day his name 
is mentioned in the solemn commemoration of the bene- 
factors of Cambridge, was the completion of the schools. 
When Rotherham came up first to Kmg's College, the 
north side of the school's quadrangle alone was com- 
pleted, the western side was in course of erection. 
The southern side, planned in 1457, seems scarcely to 
have been seriously undertaken until 1466, when William 
Wilflete the Chancellor appealed for subscriptions for it 
in London : it is believed to have been finished in 1470 
or the following year. The completion of the eastern 
side of the quadrangle was the work of Rotherham's 
chancellorship, and mainly of his munificence. ' The little 
schole, now the place of judgment for the Vice-Chancellor, 
and the other schole where the Doctors sit were built 
at the charges of the University : and the library over 
that by Thomas Rotherham then Chancellor both of the 
realm and the University, Bishop of Lincoln, and after- 
wards Archbishop of York, besides the schole gate with 
the jaumes, as it standeth, by him especially ; and certain 
other, as Humpie Duke of Gloucester gave 20 marks, 
and the Earle of Oxford (whose chaplain the said 
Rotheram was) gave 10 li.' The library was furnished 
* with everything needful and enriched with numerous 
volumes of great value.'t The exact dates of the 
erection of the eastern side are not known : and the 
mention of the gifts of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester,! 

* Willis & Clark, vol. i., p. 473. 

f Willis & Clark's " Architectural History of Cambridge," vol. in., 
pp. 13—15- 

J Speaking of these buildings of Rotherham, Fuller in his " Worthies" 
says that there was Richard III.'s cognizance the Boar's Head on a 
part of it ; and adds, " The truth is that Rotherham having felt the 



CHAPTER VI.] AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C. 59 

(ob 1447) and the Earl of Oxford, who (if he is the one 
to whom Rotherham was chaplain) died in 1462, point 
to its design at least at a far earlier time. The gateway 
however, and the library on the upper floor of the whole 
side was undoubtedly Rotherham's work. Godwin in his 
"Life of Rotherham," speaks of these as begun in 1470; 
they were finished by 1475. Unfortunately, while it is still 
possible to see what was the appearance of the three 
other sides of this old quadrangle, now the University 
Library, the part built by Rotherham has given place 
to the enlarged eastern front, built by Wright (1755-8) 

Sharp Tusks of that Boar (when imprisoned by the aforesaid King for 
resigning the Great Seal) advanced his armes thereon, merely to in- 
gratiate himself.'' Unless the crest was carved long after the erection 
of the building, Fuller's quip is more smart than accurate. On the 
outer side of Rotherham's Gateway there was a Sun, the emblem of 
Edward IV., and three shields, one of which is indistinguishable, 
another bearing the arms of Edward IV., the third bearing the arms of 
Rotherham. On the inner face in a compartment of stone is a rose, 
supported on the right side by a bull, and on the left by a boar. Mr. 
Willis Clark considers the rose the White Rose of York, and says that 
a bull was sometimes used by Edward as a supporter, as the boar was 
by Richard. He also thinks that the entry in Archbishop Parker, 
which attributes the gift of 20 marks towards the building to Humphrey 
Duke of Gloucester may be a mistake for ' Richard.' The bull was 
the cognizance of the Neviles, and so might be used by Edward or 
Richard, whose mother was a Nevile. In the deed (March 16, 1484), 
however, in which Rotherham himself as Chancellor decrees to Richard 
the customary exequies and mass of requiem, as a benefactor of Cam- 
bridge, a list of Richard's benefactions is given, without any mention 
of the schools : nor do the schools occur in a similar list in the 
petition for Rotherham's release, which would naturally suggest a 
mention of it. There is of course no evidence that Edward either 
contributed to the building, but it would be natural to place his arms, 
&c. on it, as the reigning king. Is it possible that the boar was really 
a memorial of Humphrey, and the bull of Oxford ? In a list of badges 
contributed by the Mr. Philip Shirley to " Nichol's Herald and Gene- 
alogist " (vol. VI., p. 338), said to be of the middle of the sixteenth 
century, the " stere " is given as the badge of Oxford. The gateway 
of Rotherham's part of the Library was removed to Madingley, and 
can be seen there as the entrance to the stables. 



6o ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

during the Chancellorship of the Duke of Newcastle. 
The picture of the old schools by Loggan however gives 
a good idea of what it must have been ; and Cole in 
his " Life of Rotherham," writing immediately after its 
destruction, gives us this description: — 

" While he was Bishop of Lincoln and our Chan- 
cellor, at his own expense, and that no inconsiderable 
one, except a small matter contributed by the University 
and King Richard IH. (?), he finished that beautiful 
gate and two courts on the side of it, the one for 
the Vice-Chancellor, and the other for the Commissary 
of the University, to hold their courts of justice in : 
the one of them now used as an entrance for the 
Vice-Chancellor and doctors to their gallery in the 
Divinity Scholes ; over all which buildings run a long 
gallery, made use of as a Library, and making the east 
front of the present schools, fronting St. Mary's Tower 
in the Regent Walk. His arms to this day (I copy 
this part of my account from one wrote in my ' History 
of King's College,' in 1746) are on the said portal in 
stone ; and in the old Library as it is called above, 
built by him and furnished with 200 volumes, some of 
which remain there to this time (1759), are to this day 
(viz., 1746) in the windows ; his device in almost every 
pane of glass, being a buck trippant, in almost every 
posture and attitude you can conceive, being part of 
his arms : together with the white or York rose, which 
shows his affection to his great patron, Edward IV. 
There has been some old writing also mixed among 
them two or three times in every window in curious 
letters, whereof some are composed of serpents, and is 
Da te Deo.* But in my absence, in the Vice-Chan- 

* ' Da te Deo ' was the motto of Rotherham apparently. It appears 
in three places at the beginning of the volume containing the statutes 



CHAPTER VI. AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C. 6l 

cellorship of Dr. Paris, the front of these scholes were 
thought to want repair, at which time all the old 
painted windows were taken down to make room for 
Crown glass, and all those paintings, tho' perfect and 
compleat, were taken away by the glazier, to the no 
small reproach of the University in thus defrauding 
the pious benefactors and founders amongst us of their 
grateful memorials. There were also many other antient 
coats in the open work at the top of each window, 
all of which were taken away ; and though I used all 
means I could think of to recover them, yet they were 
broken, dispersed, or mislaid in a month after they 
were removed in such a manner as I could not find 
them. One large pane I had as the gift of the Vice- 
Chancellor, part of which composes two gothic windows 
I made in the parsonage at Blecheley in Buckingham- 
shire besides some which I put into the east 

window of the parish church. Since which time the 
whole of Archbishop Rotheram's building is pulled 
down, and about the year 1756 an elegant new structure 
erected upon the same spot, under the auspices of the 
Duke of Newcastle, the present Chancellor of the 
University." 
Cole goes on to descant on the impolicy as well as in- 
gratitude of the destruction of stained glass in Gothic 
windows. ' In the magnificent chapel of King's College 
.... was it not for the beautiful windows of painted glass 
too much light would be uneasy to the eye.' He then 
describes one of Rotheram's books, " Speculum Historiale," 
in three volumes, by Vincentius, printed in 1473, with ' a 

of his ' College of Jesus at Rotherham,' preserved at Sidney Sussex 
College, Cambridge : once over the arms of the See of York, once over 
Rotherham's own arms, and again over his arms impaled with those of 
the See of York. 



62 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

piece of vellum ' attached to each volume, giving the title, 
and the words ' ex dono reverendissimi in Christo Patris 
ac Dni. Dni Thomae Dei gratia Ebor. Archiepi. Anno 
Dni. 1484:' and infers from this instance that the gift of 
books did not belong to the earlier Chancellorship, but 
the later date of these volumes. He concludes this notice 
of Rotherham's work at the Schools by mentioning the 
improvement which he made in the approaches to the 
Schools, which were then much covered with buildings. 
• That there might be a free communication between 
these Scholes and Great St. Mary's Church, he between 
the years 1470 and 1476 opened the walks on each side 
of the Scholes.'* 

Notwithstanding Cole's remark, it is evident 
Rotherham's that Rotherham had made a munificent 
Gifts to the present of books to the Library at the time 

of the completion of the building ; and a 
considerable one apparently at an earlier period than 
this. At any rate the book-plate of the Library exhibits 
his arms, impaled with those of the See of Bochester. 
Although there was a library previous to that time, 
Rotherham was, partly by his gifts of books, and partly 
by his aid to the building, considered the Founder of it. 
At the date of the completion of the Schools, the decree 
of commemoration says that he had enriched it with 
numerous and costly books! (opulentam reddidit .... 
non paucis vel exilibus libris). The date of the volume by 
Vincentius shews that he gave other books subsequently 
— his total contribution being 200 volumes. Whether 
any of them still remain seems doubtful. Allen (skeleton 
Collegii Regalis), writing in the last century, says that 

* Guest, pp. 94, 95. A central walk was made later by Archbishop 
Parker in 1574, called Regent Walk. See Atkinson & Clarke, p. 272. 

Cooper's Annals, vol. i., p. 222. 



CHAPTER VI.] AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C. 63 

" by the covetousness of those in power and remissness 
of the library-keepers " they were for the most part 
shamefully embezzled." All the earlier gifts would of 
course be manuscripts. But ' Vincentius ' is interesting as 
a printed book. We shall see later donations of printed 
books by Rotherham to his College of Jesus. About the 
time of the completion of the schools Caxton, under the 
patronage of Edward, and Richard of Gloucester, and 
Bourchier, was setting up his English press, and must 
have been known to Rotherham. His books however 
were not theological. Those given by Rotherham were all 
from foreign printing presses ; and as yet the opportunity 
of buying printed theology was only felt as a boon to 
divinity. In the next century it was to be very different, 
leading to wholesale confiscation of the books from 
Germany and the stern restrictions of licensing.* 

It is for this memorable work of that day 

Rotherham ^^at still the name of Rotherham is heard 

enrolled among -^ ^^^ commemorations of the benefactors 

the Benefactors ^ ^ , . , „, . . , , 

of Cambridge. °^ Cambridge. The original decree settmg 

forth the gratitude of the University is dated 
May 13, 1475: "In grateful acknowledgment of the bene- 
faction of their Chancellor Thomas Rotherham, then 
Bishop of Lincoln .... who had completed the new 
schools, which he had enriched with numerous and costly 
books," it decreed "that he should be enrolled for ever 
among their benefactors, and that his name should be 
specially recited by the priest, who visited each school 
annually to pray for the benefactors of the University." 
And further, that yearly during his life on the day on 

* Besides his gifts above Rotherham gave books to the Library at 
Pembroke. One of them, " The Epistles of St. Cyprian," was given, 
before his appointment to the mastership of the College, during his 
Lincoln Episcopate. (See Wrenn MS, at Pembroke.) 



64 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

which the Masters resumed their lectures after the feast 

of Easter, a mass should be celebrated, with deacon and 

sub-deacon, for the healthful security of the state and 

persons of the whole body of bishops, and that after his 

death there should be yearly exequies with a morrow 

mass .... on a day assigned by him or another on his 

behalf.* 

The thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and muni- 

Linco n ficence, which characterise this Cambridge 

College, ' . , , . 

Q „ , work, came out with equal prommence m 

Rotherham's handling of a claim made on 

him at this same period in the Sister University. Lincoln 

College, Oxford, derives its name from the fact of its 

foundation by Richard Fleming, a Yorkshireman and 

Bishop of Lincoln, like Rotherham, and like Rotherham 

advanced by the Pope of his day (Martin V.) to the 

Archbishopric of York. Unlike Rotherham, however, his 

appointment to York was opposed by those in whom the 

power of the crown was vested in the minority of 

Henry VI., and not without difficulty he had effected his 

translation back again to Lincoln. In his residence as a 

graduate at Oxford, Fleming " had been noted for his 

sympathy with the tenets of the Wyclifists ; but in his 

later years he had come to regard the movement with 

alarm, forboding that it was one of those troubles which 

were to vex the Church towards the end of the world." 

After his return to Lincoln, consequently " he determined 

* Quoted from Cooper's Annals, vol. i., p. 222. The original Latin is 
given in Hearne's " Liber Niger Scaccarii," vol. 11., pp. 687, 688. The 
description of the building is given as " Scholas novamque superius 
Librarian! polito lapide sumptuosa pompa ac dignis aedificiis perfect, 
eamque omnibus ut decuit rebus exornatam, non paucis vel exilibus 
libris opulentam reddidit, plurimaque insuper alia bona Universitati pro- 
curavit." The deed was sealed both with the seal of the University 
and the seal of Rotherham himself, as Chancellor. 



CHAPTER VI.] AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C. 65 

to found * coUegiolum quoddam theologorum " — a little 
college of true students in theology, who would defend 
the mysteries of the sacred page against those ignorant 
laics, who profaned with swinish snout its most holy 
pearls."* The College as Fleming conceived it was a little 
one, and poor. He died shortly after the date of the 
charter for it (Dec. ig, 1429). After his death, however, it 
was augmented by benefactors ; among whom John Forest, 
Dean of Wells (who was named co-founder with Fleming 
for his splendid aid in buildings for the College), and 
the executors of Cardinal Beaufort and of Bishop 
Bekynton are conspicuous. Still at the commencement 
of Rotherham's episcopate it was in an unfinished state 
as regards buildings and endowments : and its endow- 
ments were endangered. f When Edward IV. came to the 
throne, they had been secured to the College by the 
powerful intercession of George Nevile, Warwick's brother, 
then Bishop of Exeter and Chancellor: and a new charter 
had been obtained from Edward. J But after the final 
triumph of Edward over the House of Lancaster they 
were again in peril, by an omission, through carelessness 

*"The Colleges of Oxford, Lincoln College," by Rev. Andrew Clark, 
p. 171. 

f In the composition of Thomas Rotherham the College is described 
as lying under ' quadam imperfectione non modo in aedificiis verum 
etiam in possessionibus ' : and Rotherham is said to have perceived 
that 'tale opus imperfectum longo tempore stare non posse.' MSS. : 
Rev. A. Clark, and " College Histories — Lincoln," by Rev. A. Clark, 
p. 27. 

j The danger arose from the assumed invalidity of the Charter of 
Henry VL as not being the rightful King. It illustrates forcibly the 
insecurity of property through the change of dynasty. In general, as 
in this case, this technical claim would be too glaring an injustice to 
be enforced. But in Oxford the College of All Souls did not escape so 
easily : they had to pay a considerable fine. See " The Colleges of 
Oxford — All Souls," by C. W. C. Oman, p. 215. The Charter of 
Edward describes Henry as ' de facto et non de jure' King. MSS.: 
Rev. A. Clark, "College History," p. 25. 



66 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

(if not intentional) in the wording of the charter. In the 

form presented in the petition of the College the grant 

was to the Rector and Fellows, and their successors: in 

the charter itself " et successoribus " was omitted : and a 

contention was set up that the grant only held good for 

the existing Rector and Fellows.* It was under these 

circumstances that Rotherham, who was Visitor of the 

College, came — probably from his castle at Banbury, — to 

Oxford. The account of Sub -rector Robert Parkinson, 

about 1570, has preserved the tradition of the scene that 

took place. 

Perhaps in the former chapel of the College, John 

Tristropp the Rector, or one of the Fellows, preached a 

sermon on the text (from Vulgate, ps. Ixxx. 15), — " Behold 

and visit this vine, and perfect that which thy right hand 

hath planted," and in the course of it appealed to the 

Bishop to 'perfect' the College. We can understand how 

dexterously he may have made use of the word ' visit,' 

and the * plantation ' by not only a Bishop of Lincoln, 

but, perhaps, a Yorkshire Bishop. At any rate, he so 

moved Rotherham's warm heart that ' at once ' he told 

the preacher that he would do what he asked from him.t 

The measures which Rotherham took for the 

Grant of £i < perfection ' of the College extended over the 

a year to ^^^xt six years of his life ; but it will give a 

„ „ ^ clearer view to consider them in the whole 

College. 

series here. His first assistance came out 

*Ibid, p. 26, and the Charter in full in MSS., Clark. 

f Ferunt .... Quod cum, de more diocesim visitando, oxoniam 
veniret, quidara ex sociis, vel Rector Tristropp, ilium inter concionan- 
dum alloquens hortatus est ut collegium perficeret illo Psalmo 80. 15. 
Vide et visita vineam istam et perfice eam quam plantavit dextera tua. 
Quibus verbis ita episcopum commovit ut statim concionanti responderet 
se facturum quod peteret. " College Histories," p. 31. See also 
Guest, p. 95. In Loggan's picture of the College (1675), a vine is 
seen spreading over the west front of the Hall. 



CHAPTER VI.] AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C, 67 

of his episcopal income. When Fleming founded Lincoln 
out of the appropriation of certain benefices in Oxford, 
he had reserved to the See a payment of four pounds a 
year for the appropriation of All Saints and St. Michael's. 
From the payment of this annual sum Rotherham released 
the College during the remainder of his episcopate 

(July 3, 1475)- 

His next work was to secure and improve 

„^ , , the condition of the College with the Kinsr. 

Charter from ° ° 

Edward lY. ^^ J""^ ^^' H78, he obtained from Edward 
a new charter, in which the error in the first 
charter, by the omission of " et successoribus " was set 
forth, and the right of the College to all its possessions 
in perpetuity clearly expressed. In the same deed five 
additional Fellowships were constituted, raising the whole 
number to twelve ; and the right of holding lands in 
mortmain was extended to a higher limit in value. 

The third step was one of those manipula- 
Appropriation tions of ecclesiastical revenue to which the 
ofTwyford Universities owe so much of their present 
enjoyment of Rectorial tithes. Appropriation 
Lincoln °^ ^^® Great Tithe in parishes had in the 
College. fourteenth century gone chiefly to the 
Monasteries. In the fifteenth century they 
had begun to flow towards the Universities. The monastic 
appropriations passed at the dissolution of the religious 
houses into the hands of the laity ; but those to the 
Colleges were not touched. Rotherham achieved the ap- 
propriation of Long Combe in Oxfordshire, and Twyford 
in Bucks to Lincoln.* 



* Dr. Jessop (" Coming of the Friars," p. 286, in the chapter on 
' The Building of a University,') has some racy sentences about the 
fashion. ' There was a crafty device whereby the owner of an advowson 
could appropriate the tithes of a benefice to the support of any corporation 



68 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

The next act of assistance was, like the 
The Comple- Cambridge work, a piece of architectural 
_ , . munificence. In 1479 he completed the quad- 
at Lincoln. wangle by building its southern side. His 
arms are carved on the wall. The quad- 
rangle as he built it had no battlements : they were only 
added in the present century. There is a rude picture 

which might be considered a religious foundation. . . . When the rage 
for founding Colleges came in, the fashion of alienating the revenues of 
country parsons grew to be quite the rage. The Colleges of secular 
priests might be and were strictly religious foundations ; and could the 
Colleges of scholars, teachers and learners, who presumably were all 
priests, or intended for the priesthood, be regarded as less religious than 
the others ? In order that the country parsons should be better educated, 
it was arranged that the country parsons should be impoverished.' The 
deeds needed for this and the preceding transactions are given in the 
Cartulary of Lincoln College, and I am indebted to Rev. A. Clark for 
the copies of them in his MSS. As they show the process followed in 
these appropriations, which meets us again in Rotherham's Register at 
York, an outline of them may be interesting. There were certain checks 
on the procedure, and certain payments were exacted. The payment to 
the Chapter is notable, and that to the poor of the parishes : when 
the great tithes fell into the hands of the laity, these payments to 
the poor seem to have been neglected. The income of the benefices 
was to belong to Lincoln, subject to certain payments, to the main- 
tenance of two chaplains, removable at its will, and the expenditure 
of a fixed sum annually to the poor of the parishes (two shillings at 
Twyford, and twenty pence at Long Combe). The patronage of 
Twyford lay in himself: but that of Long Combe lay in the 
Abbey of Ensham. The consent of the Abbey was therefore necessary. 
The parish of Twyford lay in the Archdeaconry of Bucks. The 
consent of the Archdeacon of Buckingham was therefore necessary, 
and a sum of twenty pence a year as indemnity was stipulated to be 
paid to him. The Archdeacon of Oxford was to have the same sum 
for his consent in the case of Long Combe. Further, the consent of 
the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln under their seal was necessary: so 
a sum of three shillings and fourpence a year was to be paid to them 
as indemnity, ' and in sign of subjection to the mother Church of 
Lincoln' (in signum subjectionis matrici ecclesiae Lincoln). A similar 
deed, connected with the Chapter or York, occurs in Rotherham's 
Register. Finally these consents were exhibited to the King, and his 
license obtained under the Great Seal (Nov. 11, 1478), whereon (Nov. 20) 
Rotherham's decree of incorporation of the benefices with Lincoln was 
sealed with the seal of the diocese. 



CHAPTER VI.] AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, &C. 69 

of the College in 1566, drawn for Queen Elizabeth's 
visit by John Bereblock.* 

Finally towards the close of his Lincoln 
The New episcopate (Feb. 2, 1480), he gave the College 
a full body of Statutes, in completion of the 
" ordinances " of Fleming, signed under his hand. Under 
these Statutes the College was governed until the Uni- 
versity Commission in 1855. 

For this thorough establishment of the College 

Gratitude of the Rectors and Fellows were rightly and 

the College, deeply grateful. In their agreement with 

Rotherham Rotherham they say that they have resolved 

named the , .,11 

Second Founder ^" ^^1^"^" ^°^"^^1 ^" ^^^P^^ *° ^'^^ «™ 

of Lincoln ^^e title of Second Founder (velut Reforma- 

College. torem nostrum et alterum Fundatorem), to 
commend him during life, and his soul after 
death, to the prayers of the hearers in every sermon, and 
pray for him with a special collect during life at Mass. 
After his death his obit and its anniversaries should be 
kept with the celebration of * exequies and mass of requiem 
for the soul of the bishop and his parents.' At grace 
after dinner, also the name of Rotherham after his decease 
was to be coupled with that of Fleming, with the words 
' Requiescat in pace.'t 

These rites are the same as those accorded to the 
memory of the First Founder, Fleming. J Among some 

* " College Histories — Lincoln," p. 28. A descendant of the bishop, 
Sir Thomas Rotherham, who was Fellow 1586 — 93, and Bursar (1592), 
built the west side of the chapel quadrangle. 

t" College Histories — Lincoln," p. 28. 

I ' Compositio ' with Rotherham, Mr. Clark's MSS. In order to insure 
the presence of members at these 'obits,' a sum also called an 'obit' 
was often given to each one present. The sum in Rotherham's case 
was a shilling. At the Reformation masses for the dead became illegal ; 
but the sum was paid still to each one dining in hall. Mr. Clark has 



70 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

pictures of benefactors of Oxford, painted in the 17th 
century, there was until recently in the Bodleian a picture 
of Rotherham : =^ and there is a three-quarter length por- 
trait of him in a cope, with a mitre, and a triple cross, 
in the Hall at Lincoln, which tradition asserts to be the 
gift of Bishop Sanderson, who was not only one of the 
most eminent sons of the College, but who came to it 
in right of his education at the Grammar School 
in Rotherham,* which still remained as the child of 
Rotherham's College of Jesus. See for an analysis of 
the Statutes made by Rotherham, Note E on Lincoln 
College. 

a humorous story of a sum of four shillings, belonging to the ' obit' on 
St. Bartholomew's Day, which was divided between a Fellow who dined 
in Hall, and Mark Pattison the Rector, who dined in his own room at 
an earher hour — the only men in College. 

* In the south and east galleries (of the Bodleian) see Wood's 
Antiquities, 1796, p. 955, pictures of the Founders of every College 
were depicted and hung up in 1670. Under Rotherham's picture was 
inscribed : " Thomas de Rotherham, alias Scot, Episc. Lincolniensis 
deinde Archiep. Eboracensis et totius Anglise Cancellarius Collegii 
Beatae Marise et omnium Sanctorum Lincoln. Fundator secundus. 
Anno Dom. mcccclxxviii. Obiit. mccccc. 

* Isaac Walton gives Guilthwaite, Rotherham, as the birthplace of 
Sanderson, but Hunter disputes this, and makes him born at Sheffield. 
His father certainly lived at Guilthwaite. Guest, p. 337. 










Portrait of Archbishop Rotherham. From a Mezzotint by Faber. 



CHAPTER VII. 
ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 

My Lord of York, it better showed with you, 
When that your flock assembled by the bell 
Encircled you to hear with reverence 
Your exposition of the Holy text, 
Than now to see you here, an iron man. 



How deep you were within the Books of God I 

To us, the speaker in his parliament. 

To us, the imagined voice of God Himself. 

Henry IV., Act iv., Scene II. — Shakspeare. 

The Chancellorship — Judicial Functions — The Chancellor 
in Parliament — Botherham's Speech to the Commons — The 
State of the Bealm — The Enemies of England — Lewis of 
France— The Allies of Edivard — Burgundy and Bretagne — 
The Foreign Wars of the Past — The Perils of Losing this 
Golden Opportunity — Peroration and Appeal — The Happy 
Conchbsion of Parliame^it — The Benevolence — Botherham and 
Alcock concurrently Chancellors — The War loith France — 
The Peace of Pecquigny. 



npHE consideration of his complete plans 

"® for Lincoln College has carried us too 

Chancellorship. ^ j ■ ^i r o ^.t- i. » 

far onward in the sequence or Kotherham s 

public life. We must revert to the spring of 1474,"^ in 

which he exchanged the office of Privy Seal for the 

exalted though often precarious dignity of Chancellor of 



* The exact date of the appointment is not known. Booth, his pre- 
decessor, prorogued Parliament as Chancellor on Feb. i. Rotherham 
prorogued it in the same office on May 28. See " Biographical Dictionary 
of the Judges," by Edward Foss. " Life of Rotherham," vol. iv., p. 474. 



72 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

England. In addition to its supreme judicial function, 
the Chancellorship was a post of intimate confidence 
with the King, and held often opportunities of statesman- 
ship. Its power varied greatly with the personal capacity 
of the occupant, and the weakness or delegated adminis- 
tration of the Sovereign. In the minority of Henry VI. 
it had been a vantage-ground for the imperiousness of 
Cardinal Beaufort : Wolsey at the height of his greatness 
reminds us of the great Continental Chancellors of the 
present. Edward's Chancellors, on the other hand, since 
the dismissal of Warwick's brother. Archbishop Neville, 
had been smaller men : probably it was not his policy 
to aggrandize the office. 

Rotherham was a stronger man all round 
Judicial ^j^^jj gQQ^j^ ^^^ Stillington, whom he fol- 
lowed. Lord Campbell, speaking of his 
judicial character, says that he ' was considered the 
greatest equity lawyer of the age.' ' The equitable juris- 
diction of the Courts of Chancery may be considered as 
making its greatest advance (hitherto) in this reign, al- 
though still in the rudest state, without systematic rules 
or principles.' The most notable part of this advance 
was its jurisdiction over trusts. The practice of enfeof- 
fing trustees, who should hold lands to the use of a 
man and his heirs, had been introduced in the close of 
the previous century. " During our long wars in France," 
says Blackstone, " and the subsequent civil commotions 
between the Houses of York and Lancaster, uses grew 
almost universal, through the desire men had (when their 
lives were continually in hazard) of providing for their 
children by Will, or of securing their estates from for- 
feiture, when each of the contending parties, as they 
became uppermost, attainted the other. The weak point 
of the arrangement was the abuse of the trust: and as 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 73 

the common law judges held, that the persons for whose 
benefit the trust existed could maintain no action at law 
in their courts, and so were debarred from redress at 
their hands, all cases of this kind came to the Court of 
Chancery. This exercise of jurisdiction in the matter of 
trust was, however, only one instance of the function of 
the Chancellor, to give redress to the subject, where the 
common law either failed or was unable to render justice. 
In cases where no known writ was applicable, he could 
take the matter into his own hands and decide it. In 
cases where there had been a miscarriage of justice in 
the common law courts he could stay judgment after 
their verdict, deciding according to that which was just 
and equal (secundum aequum et bonum). The last pro- 
cedure might occasionally bring him into conflict with 
the judges, though this was generally avoided by con- 
sultation with them. One one occasion, however, Lord 
Campbell records a very serious combination of the 
judges against Rotherham, because ' he had granted an 
injunction after verdict in a case depending in the King's 
Bench, on the ground that the verdict had been fraudu- 
lently obtained.' Hussey, the Chief Justice, was extremely 
indignant, and wanted to carry out the verdict in spite 
of the injunction : if the Chancellor imprisoned any one 
in the Fleet for infringing the injunction he would issue 
a habeas corpus, and release him ; and if the injunction 
was continued, the whole body of the judges were un- 
animous in their declaration that they would ' nothing 
the less give judgment and award execution.'* 

As the known facts of Rotherham's life all point to his 
uprightness, humanity, and even courage, it would be a 
gross injustice to his memory to surmise that he exercised 

* Lord Campbell's " Lives of the Lord Chancellors," 4th edition, vol. i., 
pp. 340, 341. The issue of the struggle is not stated, 



74 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

his judicial power merely as the creature of Edward. 
Still, in the paucity of these facts, we may note the dangers 
and temptations of the office. The Chancellor's court did 
not inspire the same trust as the courts of common 
law. There had been complaints in former reigns that 
ecclesiastics, who usually held the Chancellorship, were 
necessarily without legal training.* But the confidential 
position of the Chancellor about the King, along with 
the fact that he was removable at pleasure, was a more 
serious ground of suspicion. The strong feeling of the 
Commons about this extorted from Edward III., during 
a crisis in the French war, a partial concession (which 
he immediately afterwards recalled) to a demand ' that 
the Chancellor, with the other great officers might be 
chosen in open Parliament.'! Again and again the 
Commons complained of the interference of the Court of 
Chancery with the course of common law and the trans- 
ference of matters, which could be dealt with in the 
common law courts, to the Chancellor's court. | When 



* No lay Chancellor was ever appointed until Sir Robert Bourchier 
(1340), whose appointment was not a success, owing to his ignorance 
of both civil and canon law (Campbell, vol. i., p. 211). He was 
followed by two other laymen, the last of whom was inefficient. 
From that time, with the exception of Sir Robert Thorpe and Chief 
Justice Knyvet, who died in 1377, there was no lay Chancellor till the 
time of Sir Thomas More. (Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, who 
held the seals for a month between the tenures of Stillington and 
Booth, is scarcely worth counting among the Chancellors.) The un- 
certainty of equity judgments even at a later period than Edward IV.'s 
reign is often illustrated by a sarcastic speech of Selden in James I.'s 
time. " Equity is a roguish thing : for law we have a measure. Equity 
is according to the conscience of him who is Chancellor. . . . It is 
all one, as if they should make the standard for the measure we call 
a foot the Chancellor's foot, . . . one Chancellor has a long foot, 
another a short foot, ... it is the same thing in the Chancellor's 
conscience.'^ Campbell, vol. i., p. 11. 

t Campbell, vol. i., pp. 208, 209. 

J Campbell gives numerous instances of petitions from the Commons, 



CHAPTER VII,] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, 75 

we couple these facts with the conditions of the Chan- 
cellor's office in the later years of Edward IV., and 
remember the quantity of business issuing out of the 
forfeitures and attainders, and the greedy espionage with 
which the King watched every opportunity of gain in the 
incidents of feudal tenures, such as escheats, wardship 
and dower, or in appeals against injustice in the King's 
patents (of which we had an illustration in the last 
chapter) — all of them specially in the Chancellor's 
cognizance — we see how delicate and difficult must have 
been the task of being fearlessly just, and the cheats 
that might be put upon conscience. " There will never 
be wanting," says Sir Thomas More in ' Utopia,' " some 
pretence for deciding in the King's favour ; as that equity 
is on his side, or the strict letter of the law, or some 
forced interpretation of it ; or if none of these, that the 
Royal prerogative ought with conscientious judges to out- 
weigh all other considerations." " These notions are 
fostered by the maxin that the King can do no wrong, 
however much he may wish to do it ; that not only the 
property but the persons of his subjects are his own ; 
and that a man has a right to no more than the King's 

which the King always evaded. In 1379 they pray " that parties may 
be sent to the proper court to answer according to due course of 
law," In 13th of Richard II. they pray that the Chancellor might 
make no order against the common law, and that no one should 
appear before the Chancellor where recovery was given by the common 
law. In 1415, on the King's return after Agincourt, they made a 
vehement protest against the writ of subpoena, " which John Waltham 
of his craft invented " , . against the form of the common law of 
the realm in the reign of Richard II,, and which became one of the 
most powerful instruments of Chancery, In 1422 they proposed that, 
to prevent persons being called upon to answer in Chancery, the judges 
of the King's Bench or the Common Pleas should first certify, that the 
complainants could not have any action or remedy at common law. 
In 1436 they prayed "that every person . . . vexed in Chancery 
for matter determinable by the common law should have action against 
him that so vexed him, and recover his damages." 



76 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

goodness thinks not fit to take from him."* The deep 
self-indictments which abound in the devotions of the 
saintliest men are a caution against using confessions of sin 
as evidence at the bar of history. Yet it may be that 
some memories of judicial weakness may form part of 
that passionate sorrow for transgression which again and 
again bursts forth among the directions of Rotherham's 
Will.f 

In the days of Edward IV., as at present, 
The Chancellor the Chancellor presided over the Peers in 
in Parliament. Parliament. It was also his office to further 

as much as he could the business of the 
King. When Rotherham took his place in the Lords, 
there was business of importance : and the Croyland 
historian contrasts the skill and success of Rotherham 
with that of his two predecessors. Stillington had been 
incapacitated by ill-health : Booth during his short office 
" tired himself with doing nothing at all." Rotherham 
'•did all, and brought everything to a happy conclusion." 
This happy conclusion consisted in obtaining a generous 
supply for a war with Lewis, King of France. It is 
strange to our modern ideas to find Cobbett the Par- 
liamentary historian remarking that this Parliament, 
which only lasted two years and a half, was the longest 
he had as yet chronicled. Originally Parliament was 
dissolved at the close of the Session in which it was 
called : but the convenience of King and subjects gradu- 
ally pointed to some extension of its life, which was 



* The translation is from Green's " Short History of the English 
People." 

t E.g., at the outset of his Will he beseeches the Virgin, the Angels, 
and the Saints to " implore the infinite mercy of God, and pray for 
my sins, for which I am grieved and sorrowful. O, if sufficiently penitent, 
may the Lord Jesus have pity on me, and deign to turn away His face 
from those my sins." Guest, p. 136. 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND 77 

managed by the device of prorogation ; in the present 
instance this was used to an extent without example. 
The Parliament had been elected in October, 1472, when 
the land was still trembling under the shock of the 
bloodshed and revolutions in the preceding year: it had 
proved subservient to the King alike in the harvest of 
attainders, which a second time stained the triumph of 
the House of York for the enrichment of the royal purse, 
and in direct supplies for the King's necessities and the 
protection of the realm. Edward no doubt judged it 
more likely to advance his plans for revenge upon Lewis, 
which were now fast ripening, than a Parliament drawn 
fresh from the country. At the same time the supplies 
already granted him were great, so that a strong 
Chancellor, endued with tact and persuasiveness, was 
very desirable. Rotherham's first known act is the pro- 
rogation of Parliament on May 28, 1474. He may, 
however, have been in Parliament during part of this 
Session, which had begun May 9, the great event of it 
being a grant of a tenth and a fifteenth to the King. 
There was another Session in this year (June 6 — July 
18). It was the custom for the Chancellor to address 
both Houses at the commencement of a Session : and 
this address in the hands of the ecclesiastic Chancellors 
took frequently the form of a sermon, framed with special 
reference to the matter in hand. Two specimens of these 
addresses will be found on a later page. Besides these, 
there were other communications with the Commons on 
the King's business.* It was on one of these occasions 
in this year that Rotherham delivered the long and 
curious speech to the Commons and their Speaker, 



* The scene in 1523, when Wolsey came to the Commons with an 
unprecedented demand for aid against France, and was received with 
absolute silence, to his great Indignation, is a very good illustration. 



78 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

William Alyngton, in the presence of the ambassadors 

from Burgundy, which has been preserved in the records 

of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury. 

He begins by saying that their " Soveraign 

, , ,, Lord the King" is "the mooste bounde of 
Speech to the 
Commons ^^^ ^^^^ creatures of the world to bethynk, 

studie and fynde the moost convenable 
moyens " to settle his people in ease welthe and pros- 
peritie." The " oonly moyen" by which this can be 
assured " is tranquillitee and peas within " : " bi dissen- 
sion and discorde" the mightiest "reames" have "fallen 
to poverte and desolacion." " The experience of this 
nedeth not to far fette," " for every man of reasonable 
age " had known the trouble of the " reame " and " att 
oo tyme or other " had his part therein. The principal 
occasion of this " grete unrestfulness " was now "throuth 
Goddes grace and the moost victorious prowesse '"' of the 
King "extinct;" and their Soveraign Lord " in dede," "as 
ever in righte " " the very and righteous possessor of 
their lande." 

But he points out that still " many a grete 
The State of sore, many a perilous wounde" is "left un- 
the Realm, heled," "The multitude of riotous people" > 

that have " kyndeled this division " is 
"spradde" over the "reame." If they were to be re- 
duced to " obeissance," and suffer the pain due to the 
rigour of the law, there " might happe " such destruction 
of people " necessaire to the defence of the lande, already 
minished " by " inward werres " that " enemyes shuld be 
gretely encouraged " to " assaile the lande." 

One would have thought that this horrible 
The Enemies ^^^^ q£ virtual extermination of the Lancas- 

. „' trians would overshoot the mark of endur- 
Lewis of 
France. ance ; but it would only have been an 

enforcement to the bitter end of the work 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 79 

of attainder and forfeiture which the servile Parliament 
had sanctioned, and continued to sanction, in these very 
Sessions. However, though he does not express any 
horror of it as a policy, Rotherham only introduces it in 
order to suggest a motive for the war with France. 
His speech turns off as it were at the word " enemies." 
He pictures the land, if thus weakened by the infliction 
of justice within, attacked by the Scottes its " nexte " 
(nearest) adversaries in league with the " grettest and 
auncien adversaries" the " Frensshemen " and now of late 
with the Danes : and then passes to a minute enumera- 
tion of the subtill and crafty enterprises of Lewis. He 
recounts the numerous " ambassades " from Edward, end- 
ing with his own in 1468, which all " coude never 
brynge" "any fruit" "or comfort of assured peas." He 
describes Lewis as " sowyng sedition and procuring 
inward werre, the destruction as ferr as in hym was of 
the Kyng and his lande." He considers Lewis as so 
faithless, that, " if for his own imminent necessitie or 
dainger he were to offer the Kyng any recompence, it 
is to be doubted whether, his unstableness known as it 
is, he would keep such appointments." It was "notoire" 
how he had " delied " with the Dukes of Burgundy and 
Bretagne, and also with his own brother. 

The mention of the two Dukes introduces 
The Allies ^^^ alliances. The King's experience of the 
of Edward , , • ,, , -n • r -r ■ 

-, ^ , , " grand deceipte and ill-usmg 01 Lewis 
Burgundy and & i- o 

Bretagne. ^^^ ^^^ ^^"^ ^^ purchase alliances with 
the " two myghtiest princes of Fraunce, 
the Dukes of Burgoigne and Bretagne, to hys grete 
charges amounting to above the sum of CM.li. With 
the aid of these Dukes, it would be unlikely, if 
Edward should come with his might that Lewis could 
abide it : the Kyng would conquer without grete effusion 



8o ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

of Christen blode." The Dukes were soliciting the King 
" by their letters and ambassadors to challenge his rights 
in France," "ofFeryng thaymselves in that quarell as was 
never before offre made by any estranger." 

After this sanguine forecast of probable 

° success, he reminds them of the advantages 
Wars of the 

Past °^ England before the loss of France. 

There were the French ports for merchan- 
dize and " maynteyning of the navie." There was then 
no need of ships to keep the sea, which now absorbed 
a greater sum than the subsidy and tonnage and 
poundage could cover. " Many gentlemen, as well younger 
brothers as other might " in France " be worshipfully 
rewarded and inhabit that lande for the sure garde of 
the same ; the men of werre that had none other pur- 
veance" might be settled "in garrisons and lyve by their 
wages, which ells were like to continue the mischief in 
this land that they do nowe." He next proceeds to argue, 
as a thing "well remembered" that "justice, peace, and 
prosperity hath not contenued any while in this lande 
in any Kyng's dales, but in such as have made werre 
outward. Example by Kyng Henry the First, Henry the 
Secunde, Kyng Richard the First, Henry the Thirde for 
the tyme he werred oute, Edward the First, and Edward 
the Third, Henry the Fifth, usurpour, and Henry the 
Sixth, which also usurped : which last Henry in his dales, 
notwithstanding his simpleness of wit, stode ever in 
glorie and honour while the werre was contynued by 
yonde ; and that lost successively all fell to decay. Right 
so it happened," he adds, "at the city of Rome." "Not 
havyng werre with any countre outwards" they fell 
among thaimself to suche division and inward bataille, 
that finally they were brought to ruyne and desolation." 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 8 1 

" For the avoidance of that perill, and the 
The Penis of gj-g^g avauntage and proffitez of the werre 

„ ,, with Fraunce this opportunity, whereof the 

Golden ^ ^ •' 

Opportunity. ^^^^ ^^^ never seen before, nor shall of 
likelyhode hereafter, ought to be taken." 
" For if it should so happe, which God forbede, that 
thies princes which be entred so ferre in this werre should 
stand allone, they would either have to fall att appoint- 
ment with Lewis," or get other allies, and become " ex- 
treme enemyes" of England for having relinquished them : 
" for a gretter enemy may no man have than he may 
make hymself of his frend." And further, " if the Dukes 
shuld happe to be overthrown " by Lewis, the Frenshe 
Kynge would "be more myghty for Englishmen to dele 
with," " consideryng the grete landes and rich lordships, 
which should fall into his hands :" the •' entrecours of 
marchandise " with Burgundy " shuld utterly cease :" and 
this lande, " environed by myghty adversaries" the French, 
the Scotch, and the Danes, " stand in greter doubt and 
perill than ever it did before." 

Then he sums up his case, and makes his 
Peroration appeal for aid. " Wherefore William Alynton 
and Appeal. i r>- 

and ye Sirs presentyng here the commonalty 

of this lande, sith ye have herde now by what moyen 
the parfit peas of this reame may be moost honourably 
and assuredly recoveryd, with what myghty puissances, 
whereof the like was never offred, the Kyng . . . may 
be . . . assisted by princes estraungers ; what ineffable 
triumphe, glorie, welthe, and richesse may growe thereby 
to our Soveraign Lord, his Noblesse and his true subjects; 
what dishonour and irreparable damage may ensue, if 
this soo oportune season be not attempted, but such 
inestimables refused . . . like it you therefore to consider 
the knightly courage, grete prowesse ... of our Sove- 



82 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

raign Lord . . . call to your remembrances how lovyngly 
and kyndly the Comons of this lande have served and 
holpen . . . his most noble progenitours . . . and others 
usurpours upon his corone when nocne such ofFres were 
made by any so myghty princes . . . estraungers ; and 
also remember how grete fame and renoumme . . . welthe, 
and richesse . . . the noblys and also your fourefathers 
have purchased, and that the noblisse and ye ... of like- 
lihode shall now purchase like fame . . . honour and 
richesse : and thereupon . . . aide our Soveraign Lord, as 
the subjects of this reame have aided . . . the said 
projenitours and usurpours : so that he shall no we . . . 
acomplish the fructuous effecte of his seid conquest, 
which the Kyng thoroughly entendeth to execute withyn 
as breve tyme as he may, convenably with the grace of 
Almighty God and the lovynge assistance of you his true 
subjects." 

The speech rambles on in leisurely fashion, instead 
of making quick, strong hits ; and the dangers it suggests, 
if there was no war, were chiefly bogies : but it weaves 
together ingeniously the pleas, which would move men's 
minds ; the intolerable disquiet and even terror of the 
position at home, the old enmities of France and Scotland, 
the memories of enrichment and place for young English- 
men during the possession of French territories, the difficult 
problem presented by the number of lawless soldiers bred 
by the Civil War, the value of the trade with Burgundy, 
specially felt by the merchants of London, and the heroic 
traditions of the great French wars. 

We are not, however, to conceive the 

e appy „ happy conclusion " of which the old his- 
Gonclusion of . , , . . , . 

Parliament torian speaks as resultmg from this par- 
ticular piece of eloquence. It was not until 
the Session which commenced Jan. 3, 147^, that the final 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 83 

supplies for the war were voted. By that time a treaty 
with Burgundy and Bretagne had been concluded (July 25, 
1474), under which, in the event of success, the northern 
and eastern part of France would be held by Burgundy 
without fealty, and the southern part by Edward ; and 
another important step had secured the neutrality of 
Scotland (Nov. 3) ; the truce with that country being 
prolonged, with a treaty of marriage between the eldest 
son of the Scottish King and Cecily Edward's second 
daughter.* At the beginning of 1475 the time was ripe 
for a supply. A war with France was always popular. 
The "victorious prowesse" of Edward was no mere 
flattery of Rotherham, but a well-accredited experience, 
which inspired confidence in his generalship. All this 
was in favour of Rotherham's diplomacy : and the result 
of it was in the first place an order for the speedy levy 
of the tenth, granted previously, but only in slow process 
of collection ; and a further grant of one-tenth, one- 
fifteenth, and three parts of a fifteenth for the expense 
of the war. This having been achieved, the Parliament 
was dissolved (March 14) by order of the King. 

Notwithstanding this grant from Parliament, 
Edward's resources were not sufficient for 
the estimated cost of the war, and he had 
to supplement them by an expedient new in English 
history, at any rate in that organized form, a " bene- 
volence." The term became one of grim irony under the 
administration of Cardinal Morton and Wolsey and Straf- 
ford, and even its originator Edward. Rotherham no 
doubt was employed in collecting it,t a task which once 

* Rymer xi., pp. 806 & 814 — 833. 

t Archdeacon Perry, in his sketch of Rotherham, (" Lincoln Diocesan 
Magazine," January, 1893,) points out that the Chancellor must have 
been "the leading agent" in collecting the benevolence; and the 
known action of Morton and Wolsey as Chancellors bears out his 



84 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

more would have its temptations, and would not add to 
his popularity. The King presented himself as a beggar 
to his subjects, using all his resources of personal attrac- 
tion and popularity, hope of royal favour, dread of royal 
displeasure, to enforce his request. One of the stories of 
the time reminds us of the canvass of the beautiful 
Duchess of Devonshire. A widow, who had given a 
handsome sum of twenty pounds, on receiving a grateful 
salute from the royal lips doubled her benevolence. The 
alliance with Burgundy was popular with the merchants : 
the Lord Mayor gave twenty pounds, each Alderman 
twenty marks, or at least ten pounds. The response 
generally was so large, that the Croyland historian thought 
no such sum had been collected before.* 

It is natural to presume that it was the 
Rotherham position of intimate confidence which Rother- 
and Alcoc j^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ Royal counsel that now 

_, „ determined Edward to the unusual course of 

Chancellors. 

taking his Chancellor-ecclesiastic with him 

conjecture. The satirical description of the levy by the Croyland 
historian shews what people thought of it. " Everyone was to give 
what he liked, or rather what he didn't like " (quod vellet imo verius 
quod noUet). It had been practised in solitary instances by other 
sovereigns and by ecclesiastics; and the forced loan which was familiar 
enough was own brother of the benevolence. But Edward in this 
French war was the first to reduce the device to a general system. 
The grievance of it under Edward proved so intolerable, that an Act 
for its abolition was passed in the reign of Richard III. Unfortun- 
ately, however, there was a loophole in it, of which the two Tudor 
Kings eagerly availed themselves. The dilemma which Cardinal Morton 
proposed, when he asked for a benevolence, was known as Morton's 
fork. If a man lived handsomely, his opulence was manifest from his 
expenditure : if he lived less sumptuously he must have grown rich 
by his economy. It was hazardous to refuse : an alderman of London, 
Richard Read, who did so in Henry VIII. 's reign, was sent to serve 
as a soldier at his own charge on the Scots border, the General 
receiving orders to " use him according to the sharpe^discipline militar" 
of war. The exaction was never effectively rendered illegal until the 
accession of WilHam and Mary. (See Hallam's " Constitutional 
History," chap, i., and Blackstone's Commentaries.) 
* See Habington's " History of Edward IV.," and Lingard 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 85 

on his invasion of France. The transaction of the normal 
business of the office was secured by an expedient said 
to be unique in the annals of the Chancellorship, the 
appointment of Bishop Alcock as Chancellor ad interim 
during Rotherham's absence from the realm, Rotherham 
still contmuing to hold the title, and to discharge some 
of the duties. All that concerned foreign a£fairs in con- 
nection with the war would remain with Rotherham ; and, 
in fact, owing to an unlooked-for delay in the departure 
of the armament, some of the home matters came to him 
for a few weeks after Alcock's appointment.* 



* Lord Campbell (" Lives of the Chancellors ") considers that the 
seals were taken away from Rotherham and given to Alcock for the 
period of Rotherham's absence in France ; and in support of this are 
several Privy Seal Bills addressed to Alcock as Chancellor in this in- 
terval. There are however two documents in Rymer (xii. 7, 14) 
during this time, in which Rotherham is styled Chancellor ; a letter of 
Sir John Paston (Letters, vol. in., 137), dated at Calais, June 13, 1475, 
also mentions Rotherham as Chancellor; and there is a large collection 
of Privy Seals addressed to him as Chancellor during this time, some 
of them addressed to both himself and Alcock bearing date the same 
day. The duplication of these Privy Seals from various places during 
the months of May and June, 1475, is accounted for by the delay in 
the expedition till June. The last Privy Seal to Alcock is dated 
Sept. 28, 1475 (see Foss, " Biographical Dictionary of the Judges," 
p. 570). Probably the Great Seal was taken by Rotherham with the 
King, another Seal being used by Alcock. Edward IL going to Aquitaine 
in 1308, took the Great Seal with him, another Seal being for the 
time given to the Chancellor (Campbell, vol. i., pp. 167, i68). In 
1320, however, the Great Seal was not taken abroad by the King, 
though not used in his absence — a little Seal being substituted for it 
(Ibid, vol. I., p. 175). In 1342 Edward III. took the Great Seal abroad 
with him, in the same way. So again in 1344 (Ibid, pp. 212 — 215). 
On the other hand, Cardinal Beaufort going with the King to France, 
Oct. 12, 1416, left the Great Seal in England in the hands of the 
Master of the Rolls. The phrase "the Seals" arose from the fact that 
in early times the King used to deliver to the Chancellor several Seals 
all with the same impression (Ibid, p. 22). Thus Cardinal Bourchier 
in 1456 produced to the King three Seals — two of gold and one of 
silver — in three leather bags (Ibid, p. 309). 



86 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

At last the great preparations, which were 
The War ^^ overwhelm Lewis and partition France 

were completed. An army of about 30,000, 
including 1,500 men-at-arms and 15,000 archers was ar- 
rayed at Sandwich. A deed of enfeoffment, in which the 
name of Rotherham appears in company with those of 
great lords, was drawn to provide for the contingency of 
the King's death: and on June 21,* the army sailed, 
arriving after a tedious voyage of three weeksf at Calais. 
But what with the failure of support from the " estraungers" 
and the " subtilty and craft of Lewis," the issue was sorry 
and ignominious, to put beside that of Crecy and Agin- 
court. The Duke of Burgundy had just exhausted his 
resources in a disastrous expedition in Germany, and 
joined Edward at Calais with a slender retinue instead of 
an army. The two monarchs went forward to Peronne, 
which was in the hands of the Duke : but the English 
army was carefully excluded from the town, and had to 
lodge in the field. A detachment of the army advanced 
to St. Quintin's, held by the Count of St. Pol, who had 
professed himself friendly to England ; but it was fired 
on from the walls. Edward was naturally incensed, and 
the Duke of Burgundy departed, promising to return 
shortly with a numerous force. Meanwhile Lewis had 
met the danger with his usual methods. Before his em- 
barkation Edward had sent him a herald bearing an 
elaborate claim to the throne of France and declaration 
of war, drawn in such choice French that Philip de 
Commines thought it could not have been written by an 
English pen. Lewis entertained the herald in private with 
the utmost urbanity, professed his friendship for Edward, 
pointed out the weakness of the Duke of Burgundy and 

* Rymer xii., p. 7. f Stowe's Annals, 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 87 

the untrustworthiness of St. Pol, and presented him with 
three hundred crowns, in gratitude for which the herald 
advised him to make overtures to the Lords Howard and 
Stanley as likely to aid in bringing about peace with 
Edward. At the crisis of the dissatisfaction with the 
Duke of Burgundy, a French herald appeared in the 
British camp near Peronne, who gained an audience with 
Lord Howard and Lord Stanley, and then with the King, 
He performed his mission with delightful adroitness. Lewis 
desired to live in amity with a prince of such power and 
prowess as Edward. He believed that this war had 
arisen from the instigation of the enemies of himself, 
rather than from Edward, who was naturally averse from 
the desire of shedding Christian blood. These enemies, 
however, in reality were only studying their own safety, 
and when they had secured this by the help of Edward, 
would turn against him, in order to drive him out of 
France. This would soon be manifest, because the Duke 
of Burgundy was really unable to afford any aid, owing 
to his disasters in Germany. As for the aid which he 
(Lewis) had given to the Lancastrian cause, he had been 
induced partly by Warwick, partly by the necessity of 
opposition to the Duke of Burgundy, partly by his 
relationship to Henry and Queen Margaret. If the case 
were examined, it would be found, that previous to the 
Duke's marriage with Edward's sister more aid had been 
given to the Lancastrians by Burgundy than France. He 
concluded by proposing that commissions should be ap- 
pointed on both sides to conclude a peace between 
France and England which would be honourable to both. 
Remembering Rotherham's vigorous denunciation of 
the slipperiness of Lewis, it is amusing to see the readi- 
ness with which these silken pleas were received. Lord 
Howard and Lord Stanley had no doubt golden reasons 



88 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

for listening to them. The summer was also far advanced, 
without a single achievement. The commissions met at 
a village between the armies : a seven years' truce was 
agreed to on terms which Edward thought suitable to his 
honour, as they were certainly to his pocket, and which 
Lewis thought cheap to buy off future and present dangers. 
Lewis was to pay down seventy-five thousand crowns 
that year and settle on Edward an annuity of fifty 
thousand for life : Edward's eldest daughter, then a 
child, was to be married when of sufficient age to the 
Dauphin, to be conducted with honour to France by 
Lewis, and receive a settlement of ;^6,ooo a year. The 
consent of the council had been secured by the same 
methods as that of their master. Annual pensions were 
promised to the principal personages, our Chancellor re- 
ceiving one of two thousand crowns. Gloucester was the 
chief dissentient, though he subsequently paid Lewis a 
visit, and received a present of plate and horses. Hastings 
shewed the prick of conscience by the singular method 
of receiving his money, and declining to give any receipt. 
Altogether it was a sordid business recalling the temper 
of Charles IL, rather than of the Plantagenets, but in 
keeping with the habits of the King, always glad of 
money for his extravagance, and full of the indolence as 
well as the bravery of a savage. 

There is still one further incident of this 

The treaty which we must not omit, because it 

Interview gives us one of our rare glimpses of Rother- 

between Lewis ^^^^ ^Slh^n the truce had been ratified, a 

and Edward 

at Picaaifnv bridge was thrown across the Somme at 

Picquigny near Amiens, on which were 
erected two lodges, separated from each other by a 
grating of wood. Here the monarchs met each other, 
shook hands through the grating, and swore on the 



CHAPTER VII.] ROTHERHAM CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 89 

Missal to observe their engagements. At this " interview," 
says Philip de Commines, the " Chancellor of England," 
whom he calls by mistake Bishop of Ely, made a 
prophecy (which Englishmen are always ready to do) 
that at this spot (Picquigny) a mighty peace between 
France and England was in course of accomplishment 
(une grande paix — se devait faire.)" The peace was 
very nearly broken after the seven years expired, and 
only preserved by Edward's sudden death : Rotherham 
survived, to be named in an enfeoffment (like that made 
by Edward) when Henry VII. invaded France, and to 
receive the news of a war and a peace remarkably similar 
to this in brevity, abortiveness, and corruption (1492).* 

* This account is taken from Philip de Commines, Lingard, Habing- 
ton's " History of Edward IV.," and the article in the " Dictionary of 
National Biography on Edward IV." 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE LAST DAYS OF EDWARD IV. 

ist Citizen — Doth the news hold of good King Edward's death ? 
2nd Citizen — Ay, sir, it is too true ; God help the while ! 
^rd Citizen — Then, masters, look to see a troublous world. 
jst Citizen — No, no ; by God's good grace, his son shall reign. 
^rd Citizen — Woe to that land, that's governed by a child. 

Richard III. Act it., Scene III. — Shakspeare. 

Botherham s Speech in the Parliament of 1477 — The 
Attainder of Clarence — Botherham Master of Pembroke — 
Botherham Archbishop of York — The Parliament of 1483 — 
Death of Edward IV. 



T^HE Rolls of Parliament give us an 
Rotherham's i outline of the address of Rotherham, 

^ in openiner the Parliament on Tan. i6, 1477. 

Parliament r o j > t// 

of 1477 ^^ ^^ framed in the sermon-form which is 

generally affected by the ecclesiastical Chan- 
cellors. " Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, Chancellor of 
England, with striking eloquence (notabiliter et eloquenter) 
set forth and published the reasons for the summons of 
the aforesaid Parliament," at the command of the King 
himself, taking for his text (themate), " The Lord is my 
Governor, and I shall lack nothing " (Dominus regit me 
et nichil mihi deerit), under which words he set forth 
with gravity and fulness the loyalty which subjects owe 
to their Kings ; giving instances of the punishments with 
which in old times under the old and new covenant the 
disobedient have been afflicted ; quoting also that saying 
of St. Paul " The King beareth not the sword in vain." 
He shewed moreover that the King's Majesty had not 



CHAPTER VIII.] THE LAST DAYS OF EDWARD IV. 9 1 

only been directed by the Hand and Counsel of God, 
but also erected to the throne of his ancestors (non modo 
rectam verum etiam ad avitum regnum erectam). He 
concluded, speaking in the person of their Lord the King, 
" If the Lord is my Governor, I shall lack nothing ;" 
and similarly speaking in the persons of the lords spiritual 
and temporal and the commons of the realm, " If the 
Lord be their Governor, they shall lack nothing." 

This speech of Rotherham is sad reading, 
The Attainder ^j^g^ ^g review the dark use of this sword 

of the King, by a brother on a brother, 
for which this Parliament was to pray in the attainder 
of Clarence. We should like to think that the Chan- 
cellor had no sense of its imminence ; but his position 
about the King, and the notoriousness of the breach 
makes it difficult to conceive this. The verdict of history 
has little sympathy with Clarence except in the matter 
of his death. If we confine ourselves to the lifetime of 
Edward, Clarence's treachery shews ill beside the steady 
faithfulness of Gloucester. He was false and self-seeking 
and weak — false to Edward, false to Warwick, false now, 
if we could trust the elaborate indictment of his attainder, 
once more to Edward. He had taken the great estates 
which in all right belonged to his mother-in-law the 
Countess of Warwick, without a scruple : it was alleged 
that he was now seeking the throne for himself and his 
son by declaring that Edward was a bastard. The scene 
in Parliament was a horrible one. The peers were silent: 
" no one argued against the Duke except the King, no 
one made answer to the King except the Duke."* 
Clarence defended himself with warmth, but his defence 
has not been preserved for us. The Parliament peti- 

* See the " Croyland Historian," the article on Edward IV. in the 
" Dictionary of National Biography," and Lingard, 



92 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

tioned the King for his brother's execution : ten days 
later he was dead in the Tower. The conscience of 
the age was not easy about his fate. Readers of 
Shakspeare's " Richard III." at once recall the scene in 
the Tower, the secret instigation of the murder by 
Gloucester, and the butt of malmsey in which the body 
was drowned. This was the version derived from the 
Tudor historians, always ready to heap crimes on Richard. 
But Edward's own remorse, which Shakspeare also 
paints so touchingly, is well attested. The memory of it 
embittered his after years, insomuch that when solicited 
for the pardon of an offender he would sometimes say, 
'• O unfortunate brother, for whose life not one creature 
would make intercession."* We should have liked to 
believe, as Lord Campbell does, that Rotherham used 



* See the article on Edward IV., by Mr. James Gairdner, in the 
" Dictionary of National Biography." The quotation is from the Croy- 
land Historian. 

" Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death, 
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave ? 



Who sued to me for him ? Who in my wrath 
Kneeled at my feet and bade me be advised ? 
Who spoke of brotherhood ? Who spoke of love ? 
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake 
The mighty Warwick and did fight for me ? 
Who told me in the field at Tewkesbury, 
When Oxford had me down, he rescued me, 
And said, ' Dear brother, live and be a King ? ' 
Who told me, when we both lay in the field 
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me 
Even in his garment, and did give himself 
All thin and naked to the numb-cold night ? 
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath 
Sinfully plucked, and not a man of you 
Had so much grace to put it in my mind. 

O God ! I fear Thy justice will take hold 

Of me and you and mine and yours for this." 

Richard III., Act II., Scene I. 



CHAPTER VIII.] THE LAST DAYS OF EDWARD IV. 93 

his influence as peacemaker between the brothers, but 
we have no evidence on the point : he may have, or 
he may have been no braver than his peers : in 
Edward's day " the fear of the King was as the roaring 
of a lion " (Prov. xx. 2). At any rate it is pleasant to 
record, that over the attainder of Clarence he would not 
preside, as being an affair of blood. The Duke of Buck- 
ingham was appointed high steward for the occasion, and 
pronounced the sentence of death. 

Rotherham's Chancellorship at Cambridge had 

expired in 1478. But in 1480 he was elected 
Master of 
Pembroke Master of Pembroke Hall (May 22). A 

letter from the College, drawn in terms of 

profound reverence for his eminence in letters, with 

professions of humble devotion to his person is preserved 

in the Wrenn MSS, at Pembroke. The absence of a 

reference to any previous relations between the College 

and himself makes it improbable that he could have been 

formerly one of the Fellows. The death of Booth, 

Archbishop of York, had created the vacancy.* Of the 

buildings at Pembroke in Rotherham's day nothing re- 

* Litera missa ad electum in custode. Summus amor tuus in omnes 
literarum titulo prceclaros facit ut tuam praestantiam omni observantia 
omni studio omni denique officio . . . prosequamur . . , et si quid 
splendoris tuae vel dignitati vel amplitudini nostra ex mediocritate 
accidere possit habes profecto de nobis homines tibi obsequentissimos 
tuaeque Dignitatis pro viribus cultores deditissimos. Ceterum cum 
Dominum Eboracensem Archepiscopum et nostri CoUegii Custodem 
meritissimum e vita migrasse nobis compertum fuerit tuam Venerabili- 
tatem unanimi Sociorum consensu in Patrem Patronum ac nostri 
Collegii Magistrum delegimus. Ad hoc igitur munus abs te subeundum 
valeat oramus noster in te ante alios omnes amor maximus valeat 
nostri studii profectus quern sub te tali et tanto Patre egregium 
(quod tibi gaudio fore existimamus) florere comperies et nos tibi filios 
servitores et oratores habebis ad omnia jussa paratissimos. Vale et om- 
nipotentissima Dei misericordia te longa per tempora nobis incolumem 
tueatur. Ex Cantabrigia xQ Kalendas Junias Anno a Natali Christiano 
1480°. Wrenn's MSS. " De Custodibus Pembrochianis," pp. 36 — 40. 



94 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

mains but the library, and the building on each side of 
the gateway : and these have been greatly changed in 
appearance by alterations in the 17th and i8th centuries. 
The library, however, was in Rotherham's time a chapel, 
the earliest College chapel in Cambridge, dating from 
about 1360. In 1875 the little old court, of which this 
library forms the northern side, was still in existence. 
On the site of the present hall stood the older hall and 
in its southern portion the combination room, over which 
were the rooms of the Master. Pictures of it still 
remain, shewing us the lodging which Rotherham may 
have occupied on his visits, which could scarcely have 
been frequent, to the College. He seems to have been 
Master about six years.* 

This same year (1480) witnessed the eleva- 
Rotherham ^.^^ ^^ Rotherham from the diocese of 
Archbishop 

f York Lincoln! to the highest eminence which he 

attained. On Sept. 12 the Bulls of Sixtus IV. 

* These details are given from "Cambridge described and illustrated," 
pp. 312 — 320, by T. D.Atkinson. The present chapel at Pembroke was 
built by Bishop Wrenn, after the designs of his great nephew, Sir 
Christopher Wrenn, as a thank-offering for the restoration of the King, 
and his own deliverance, out of a passionate love for Cambridge, and 
a ' grateful remembrance of his first education ' at Pembroke. In his 
notes on Rotherham's life he speaks of his tenure of the Mastership 
being ad sexemium (aut plus eo), and adds that he does not know the 
reason for his resignation, surmising that it may have been caused by 
his withdrawal from public affairs at the commencement of Henry VII. 's 
reign ; or the business which came to him as legate of the apostolic 
See, or a desire to give way to some friend as a successor; or the 
plague, from which he at last died, which may have been raging at 
the University. It was not at any rate the business of the apostolic 
See. 

t There is another of those pathetic exclamations in his Will, 
appended to his mention of the Mitre and Pastoral Staff, which he had 
already given, and the twenty pounds which he bequeaths to Lincoln. 
'• Lincoln, which I ruled secondly, O would as well as I ought to have 
done." Guest, p. 141. This clause is not given in the Latin Will 
below. 



CHAPTER VIII.] THE LAST DAYS OP EDWARD IV. 95 

were read in the Cathedral church of York for his 
appointment as Archbishop of York and Legate of the 
apostolic See. Rotherham himself, however, was not 
there in person,* appearing by his Vicars-General. The 
appointment as Legate was not an exceptional one. 
Since the time of Archbishop Thoresby the Archbishop 
of York had been in virtue of his office a " legatus 
natus" like the Archbishop of Canterbury.! It is rather 
a surprise to find the record of a grant of pardon from 
the King as the sequence of his new dignity (Oct. i, 
1480). It would have been almost natural, when he was 
raised to the See of Lincoln, after all the risks in the 
revolution: but these were quiet years. But it was not 
uncommon to sue for a Grant of Pardon on leaving 
office as a security. Bourchier did so, when he resigned 
the seals as Chancellor. Waynflete did the same. The 
Pardon did not imply any known acts of offence, but was 
a safeguard against accusations. | 



* The dates in this matter are these : on May 4, Rotherham is given 
the temporalities of York to hold for the King (Rymer) ; on June 12, 
the conge d'elire is issued to York (ibid) ; on Sept. 3, the Papal Pro- 
vision; on Sept. 9, the restoration of the temporalities to Rotherham 
as Archbishop (Rymer, Le Neve) ; on Sept. 12, the publication of the 
Bulls of Sixtus IV. in the cathedral at York, Rotherham himself being 
away from the diocese in distant parts (extra suam Diocem Eboracen- 
sem in remotis agente). This last quotation is from Rotherham's 
Register at York, begun on this September 12, which is in good 
preservation. 

t I am indebted to the courtesy of Monsignore Noyes for pointing 
this out to me. 

X Rymer xii. p. 138. Hatcher in the register of King's College asserts 
positively that Rotherham at some period attained the still higher emin- 
ence of Cardinal of St. Cecilia trans Tiberim, commenting on the 
omission of this in the list of English Cardinals given by Godwin in 
his book " De Praesulibus Angliae." I have however nowhere found 
any evidence of this elevation : nor has the industry of Guest (p. 93), 
nor of Cole, the careful Cambridge biographer. Monsignore Noyes 
also, in answer to an enquiry through one of my friends, Mr. Francis 



g6 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Onee more, for the last time, Rotherham 

^ ,. , opened Parliament on Jan. 20, 1483, taking 
Parliament ^ , . «,, t , • t • 1 . j 

of 1483. ^°^ ^^^ ^^^^ " ^^^ l^otd IS my Light and 
my Salvation." War with France seemed 
again approaching. Edward had been fooled by Lewis. 
For three years he had been expecting that the Princess 
Elizabeth would be sent for to France, to marry the 
Dauphin in accordance with the terms of the Picquigny 
agreement ; but some excuse had always been offered for 
delay. A sudden event— the death of Mary of Burgundy 
by a fall from her horse — opened a new vista to the 
King of France. If Margaret, Mary's daughter, could be 
married to the Dauphin, with the estates which Lewis 
had ravished from her mother as a settlement, this 
quarrel with Burgundy would be ended. So he threw 
Edward over without a scruple. Edward was furious 
and the nation indignant. The Parliament voted a tenth 
and a fifteenth for the war. 

But there was to be no war. The most 

splendid man of his time, in the prime of 
Edward, 
Auril 9 1483 ^^^^' ^^^"^^ himself stricken with a mortal 

sickness, fed by his habits of debauchery 
and lust : and the prospect for his Queen and children 
as well as the retrospect of his own life filled him with 
gloom and dread. To no one, we think, more than 
Rotherham, his trusted instrument for so many years, his 
chaplain and so probably his confessor, would the tumult 
of the King's soul be laid open. At that death-bed 
interview, filled with the vision of fresh bloodshed 

King, most kindly examined the available authorities on English 
Cardinals (Giaconius, Rome, 1677 ; Lorenzo Cardella, Rome, 1793 ; 
Dictionnaire des Cardinaux, Migne, vol. xxxvi. ; and Francesco Cristo- 
fori, Rome, 1888 ; as well as a series of Articles in the " Catholic Times," 
by Mr. C. Munich), but could find no evidence of it. 



CHAPTER VIII.] THE LAST DAYS OF EDWARD IV. 97 

around the person of his innocent boy, he bound on the 
one hand his Queen (with her brother Rivers) and her 
young sons Dorset and Grey, and on the other Hastings 
the Queen's enemy, Howard, Stanley, and the old nobility 
who resented the power and honours which had been 
heaped on the meaner blood at the Queen's kindred, 
to vows of reconciliation and amity. Rotherham's truer 
promises would be given along with the hollower ones 
of the rest. Rotherham would receive the last confession 
of his bloody past, and the direction which he left that 
restitution should be made out of his treasures to all 
whom he had wronged by exactions or benevolences : 
from Rotherham's lips he would receive his absolution 
and the last office for the dying. In the elaborate 
account of the obsequies the figure of Rotherham fre- 
quently occurs. He would be among the peers, who on 
the day following the King's death (April 9) viewed the 
gigantic bloated corpse, stripped to the waist, at the 
palace of Westminster. In the great procession to the 
Abbey the Archbishop of York was among those that 
preceded the " herse," and was the celebrant at the mass. 
At its conclusion he rode with the lords to Charing, 
where the " chaire " in which the body was borne was 
censed ; and on to Syon, where it rested in the church 
for the night. On the morrow they reached Windsor, 
where the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Win- 
chester censed the corpse at the castell gate. Next 
morning in Edward's new quire of St. George's, where 
Henry VI. alone among our Kings had found at last a 
rest, it was by Rotherham that the final *' masse of 
requiem " was sung* (April 19). 

* For Edward's preparation for death, and orders for restitution to 
those he had oppressed, see Lingard. For the details of the funeral, 
see the curious account in " Letters and Papers illustrative of the 
reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII.," by James Gairdner. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM'S PUBLIC 

LIFE. 

The tyrannous and bloody act is done; 
The most arch deed of piteous massacre 
That ever yet this land was guilty of. 



" Thus, thus," quoth Forest, " girdling one another 
Within their alabaster innocent arms : 
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk. 
Which in their summer beauty kissed each other. 
A book of prayers on their pillow lay." 

Richard III., Act i., Scene III. 

Richmond — We will unite the white rose with the red. 
Smile, heaven, upon this fair conjunction, 
That hath long frowned upon their enmity. 

Ibid, Act v., Scene III. — Shakspeare. 

The Boy -King in the Potver of the Duke of Gloucester — 
The News of the King's Capture reaches Botherham — He 
gives the Queen the Great Seal — Botherham dismissed from 
the Chancellorship — TJie Black Council of June 13 — Death 
of Hastings — Impisonment of Botherham — Murder of the 
Boy-King, Edioard — Incidents concerning Botherham in the 
Beign of Bichard III. — Incidents in the Reign of Henry VII. 



The Boy-King HP HE death of Edward IV. left Rotherham 
in the Power 1 firmly devoted to the Queen and the 
of the Dnke y^^^^ p^.-^^^^^ p^^ ^^^ moment the Queen 

seemed at considerable vantage. The young 
King was at Ludlow in the hands of her brother, Lord 
Rivers. The Tower with all its treasure was in pos- 



CHAPTER IX.] LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM*S PUBLIC LIFE. 99 

session of her eldest son, the Marquis of Dorset. She 

may have dreamed of playing the part of Isabella in 

Edward III.'s minority. But in reality she had no strong 

man to help her : and Gloucester had his own designs, 

though it is possible that he may not as yet have fully 

realised the crimes to which they were to lead him. She 

proposed that the young King should come under Lord 

Rivers' escort with an army to be crowned in London. 

'* What need was there," said Lord Hastings and Lord 

Stanley, " of an army." Anxious to avoid suspicion, she 

consented that the King's escort should only be the 

ordinary retinue around him, and in that act surrendered 

everything. At Stony Stratford, the King with his uncle 

Lord Rivers and his half-brother Lord Richard Grey were 

met by Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham in 

command of nine hundred men. Lord Rivers and Lord 

Richard Grey, and the two confidential servants of the 

King, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Hawse, were 

arrested, and sent into the north :* the retinue was 

dispersed : the poor boy-King burst into floods of tears, 

full of grief for his relatives, helpless and terrified about 

his own safety. 

The news of the surprise by Gloucester and 

The News o Buckingham reached three people at night 

_ , very shortly afterwards. One of these was 

Capture -^ ■' 

reaches Lord Hastings, who was assured by the two 

Rotherham. Dukes that the young King's person was 

perfectly safe, the arrests of Rivers and 

Grey being solely made in order to get him out of the 

hands of the Queen's party. Another was the Queen, 

who at once resolved to fly into Sanctuary. Her son 

* Lord Rivers was taken first to Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire : the 
rest to Pomfret. All of them were finally executed at Pomfret, though 
not on the same daj'. See Lingard. 

!LcFC. 



100 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Dorset at the same time fled thither from the Tower, 
The third was Rotherham. " There came," says the old 
chronicler Grafton, " to doctor Rotheram Archbyshope of 
York and lord Chancelloure a messenger from the lorde 
chamberlayne to York Place beside Westminster : the 
messenger was brought to the bysshopes bedside and 
declared to him that ye dukes were gone back with the 
young King to Northampton, and declared further that 
the lorde Hastynges his master sent him woord that he 
should fear nothing, for all should bee well." " Well," 
quoth the bysshop, " bee it as it will it will never bee 

so well as we have seen it." Whereupon the 

bysshop called up his servauntes before daylight and 
took with him the greate scale, and came before day to 
the queen, about whom he found much hevynesse, rumble, 
haste and business, carriages and conveyance of her 
stuffs, chests, coffers, fardels trussed on men's backs. 
The Queen herself sat alone on the rushes all desolate. 
The archbysshop comforted her in the best manner he 
could ... in goode hope and peace by the message sent 
him fro the lorde Hastynges. " A wo worth him," quoth 
the queen, "for it is he that goeth about to destroy e 
me and my bloode." "Madam," quoth he, "be of good 
comforte, and I assure you yf they crowne any other 
Kynge than your son, whom they now have, we shall on 
the morrow crown his brother who you have with you; 
and here is the greate scale, which in lykewise as your 
noble husband delivered it ouer to me, so I deliver it to 
you for the use of your son." So (Rotherham) departed 
home, and when he opened his windows .... the river 
full of boates of the Duke of Gloucester watching that no 
person should go to Sanctuary, or pass unsearched."* 

* " Grafton's Chronicle " is derived from the earliest " Life of 
Edward V.," by Sir Thomas More ; it is identical with it in the facts, 
but somewhat more quaint and graphic. 



CHAPTER IX.] LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM'S PUBLIC LIFE. lOI 

The tenderness of Rotherham's heart, and the 

® ^^ ^ ® impulse of chivalrous faithfulness which led 
Seal back from 

the Oueen ^^^ *° ^^ ^^^' '^^^^^ ^^^ cooler judgment 
speedily refused to justify, are touchingly 
conspicuous in this interview. Perhaps, as he saw that 
desolate mother sitting on the rush-strewn floor, with her 
boy wondering at this strange panic and confusion, it 
was not only love of his dead master, loyalty to the 
throne, pity for the unprotected boys that was stirring 
within him, but a long-ago vision of a beautiful woman, 
with fair hair streaming down her shoulders, whom he 
the Chaplain of the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford had met 
as lady of the bed-chamber to Queen Margaret, and who, 
like himself, having fallen into disgrace after the carnage 
at Towton, by the same dead hand had been raised to 
years of happiness and eminence.* The surrender of the 
Great Seal, however, into Elizabeth's hands was an act 
which next morning he perceived to be alike imprudent 
and irregular on grounds of State : it was restored to 
him at his request. But the act had really involved his 
downfall as a statesman. 



* We may recall the romance of her marriage with Edward. After 
the Battle of Towton Edward visited her mother Jacquetta the Duchess 
of Bedford, and Lord Rivers (Wydeville) her father at Grafton near 
Stony Stratford. Elizabeth's first husband (Sir John Grey) had fallen 
recently in the second battle of St. Albans. She threw herself at 
Edward's feet, asking the reversal of his attainder in favour of her 
children. Edward's amorous nature passed from pity to love. But she 
was proof against dishonour. Foolish as it was to marry one so much 
beneath him at that moment, when his throne was scarcely secured, he 
did so secretly (May i, 1464). In the early morning the marriage was 
solemnized at Grafton in the presence of the Duchess of Bedford and 
two female attendants. A few months afterwards, to the discontent 
of Warwick and the great nobles, she was crowned, and honours were 
lavished on her kindred. See the account in Lingard, derived from 
Fabyan and others. 



I02 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

On May 4 the boy-King entered London, in 

a splendid long mantle of blue velvet, 
loses the 
Chancellorship, escorted by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen 
in scarlet, and five hundred commoners in 
violet, his own servants being clad in deep mourning ; the 
Duke of Gloucester riding bare-headed before him to the 
palace of the Bishop of London, where he received fealty 
and homage from prelates, nobles, and commoners : 
Gloucester was the first to take the oath of allegiance. 
A few days afterwards at the council which appointed 
Richard Protector, the Seals were taken away from 
Rotherham on the ground of his having given them to 
the Queen : and the forfeiture marks the close of his 
political power. Still, however, he was among the highest 
in the realm, and as such was one of those who were 
preparing in council for the coronation of the young 
King* on June 22. 

On this coronation, as the outside world 
The Black believed, the whole nation with the Protector 
Council of 4. Ti, 1, 

T ^oi... was now set. There were, however, certain 
June 13th. ' ' 

Death of constant meetings of the friends of Gloucester 
Hastings. and Buckingham at Crosby Hall, which men 
like Stanley and Hastings, Bourchier the 
Archbishop, Morton Bishop of Ely, and, as Sir Thomas 
More expressly mentions, Rotherham regarded with some 
suspicion — Hastings, however, less so, than the rest, 
because he believed himself kept well informed of what 
passed there. This was the state of things when the 
Black Council meeting of June 13 assembled at the 

* As the proceedings in Council of Edward V.'s reign are lost, the 
precise date of Rotherham' s dismissal from the office of Chancellor is 
irrecoverable. Russell, however, his successor, is styled Chancellor in a 
document dated June 2, so that it must have been about the close of 
May. See Foss' " Biographical Dictionary of the Judges," vol. iv., 
p. 476. 



CHAPTER IX.] LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM'S PUBLIC LIFE. IO3 

Tower. Richard was at first in pleasant mood, and 
asked Morton for some of his strawberries from Ely 
Place: as the business proceeded, he retired for about 
an hour, and then re-entered frowning. '• What punish- 
ment," he asked, *' did those deserve, who had plotted 
his death, near as he was to the King and Protector of 
the realm ? " Proceeding, he accused the Queen, and 
Jane Shore the mistress of Hastings, of having bewitched 
him, and unbuttoning his left sleeve displayed his left 
arm (which had always been withered) as a proof of 
their sorceries. Hastings venturing to deprecate these 
suspicions, he gave a violent answer, and " clapped his 
fist down hard upon the board," at which some men- 
at-arms rushed in, and at Richard's order arrested 
Hastings as a traitor. Richard declared that he would 
not dine until he was executed. A timber log used in 
the repairs of the chapel was found on the Tower 
Green, and the wretched man's head struck off upon it. 
It is clear that it was his loyalty to the young King 
which brought Hastings to his death : for at the same 
council all the others (except Bourchier) who had sus- 
pected the good faith of Gloucester, were thrown into 
prison. 

The imprisonment of Rotherham lasted until 
Imprisonment after the coronation of Richard. He was 
of Rotherham. imprisoned, according to Sir Thomas More, 

^ in the Tower under Sir Tames Tyrell, or 
of the ■* 

Boy King. accordmg to the Croyland historian, in a 

castle in Wales. The University of Cam- 
bridge, which in this very year had once more elected 
him their Chancellor, sent to Gloucester an earnest and 
touching petition for his release.* For his reputation it 
is perhaps well that he was not at liberty, for he might 

* Se^ note H,. 



104 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

have been associated, as some say that he was,* in the 
miserable errand to the Queen on which Bourchier was 
sent upon the Monday following the Black Council. 
Though Richard had without doubt at that time deter- 
mined to seize the crown, the farce of the boy-King's 
coronation was still maintained. At that same council 
writs were sent out for a meeting of Parliament on the 
25th, in the name of Edward V. The draft of the 
Address which Russell the Chancellor prepared for it is 
still extant. f The boy's coronation robes were ordered. 
But it would cast a slur of dishonour on this corona- 
tion, the Protector urged, if the Duke of York were 
hiding in Sanctuary instead of being present. No one 
would be so fitting an emissary to the Queen about it 
as the lord Cardinal. The Cardinal was successful, and 
the young brothers met once more at the Tower. Poor 
boy-princes ! The Tower was changing from a palace 
to a prison. Poor twelve-years-old boy- King ! the next 
Sunday Dr. Shaw, in his sermon at Paul's Cross, 
declared the Prince a bastard, on the grounds, that when 
Edward IV. married Elizabeth, he had a previous wife 
still living. Lady Eleanor Boteler ; nay, more, that 
Edward IV. was no son of Richard Duke of York. And 
this charge of bastardy was not only left unpunished as 
treason, but enforced by the Duke of Buckingham, 
circulated among the nobles and in the city : then on the 
following Wednesday — the very day on which the boy- 
King was to have opened Parliament — Buckingham, with 
several lords and gentlemen, the Lord Mayor and citizens, 
had audience with Richard at Baynard's Castle, and 
declaring that they could never "crouch to the rule of 

* See note G on " The Delivery of the Duke of York out of 
Sanctuary." 
f See Nichols, " Grants from the Crown during the reign of Edward V." 



CHAPTER IX.] LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM's PUBLIC LIFE. IO5 

a bastard," offered him the crown. For eleven weeks the 
boy has been served on bended knee with deep obeis- 
ance : yet once or twice a shudder has come over him, 
and always there has been a grief and loneliness in the 
thought of the mother and sisters who dare not come 
to him, and who will never see his face again. Three 
months or so are yet to come : and then that piteous 
night, when the two boys will be smothered in their 
sleep, and the bodies buried secretly at the foot of the 
staircase leading to the chapel in the Tower. 

Rotherham was released from prison after 
Incidents Richard's coronation on July 6* ; but he may 

« XI. 1- not have been restored to favour. At any 

KotneFnam 

in the Reign of ^^^^f in the magnificent pageants and ritual 
Richard III. which marked the welcome of the King and 
Queen at York, in September, and the 
creation of their son Edward as Prince of Wales, 
Rotherham was not present. They lodged in Rotherham's 
palace at York. There was a splendid procession to the 
Minster, the King wearing his crown ; and there was 
high mass; but the prelate who officiated was the Bishop 
of Durham. We are not however to think of Rotherham 
as banished from public affairs. We find him among the 
Triers of Petitions in Richard's first Parliament (Jan., 
1484, '* Erchevesque d'Everlyk.") His name occurs again 
among the " lordys that shall commyn for the maryage 
between the prince of Scottes and one of the Kynges 
blood " at the meeting of ambassadors at Nottingham 

* See the " Fabric Rolls of York Minster; " Surtees' " Society," p. an ; 
Browne's " History of the Metropolitan Church of York," pp. 260—261; 
and Guest, p. 100. Lingard, following the authorities in Drake's 
" Eboracum," asserts that there was a second coronation at York ; but 
this is a mistake. So is also Drake's assertion that Rotherham was 
present, and that it was he who crowned Richard in the Chapter House. 
The account in the Fabric Rolls and the Statute Book of the Vicars- 
Choral is minute and decisive. 

u 



Io6 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

(Sept. 12, 1484).* A piece of scandal also, related by 
Grafton and Polydore Vergil, shews that he was at times 
about the court. Poor Anne (Richard's Queen) was in 
weak health. Her son Edward had died, which must 
have been a bitter grief to her, as there was little hope 
that she would again give birth to an heir to the throne. 
It is hardly possible to think her previous life could 
have been very happy. She had been one of the 
counters in the game of greed and intrigue. Her first 
husband had been young Edward of Lancaster, Margaret 
of Anjou's son, who was murdered at Tewkesbury. The 
story of her wooing by Richard, as Shakspeare gives it, 
is only a gruesome and not very natural invention. She 
was hidden away, in order to prevent Richard (who 
merely wanted her for the sake of her estates as 
Warwick's daughter) from discovering her : but was found 
in the disguise of a cook-maid, and married to him. The 
story about Rotherham is, that Richard "complained of 
his Queen, that she brought forth no children ; and that 
chiefly he did lament with Thomas Roherham, Arch- 
bishop of York, because he was a grave and good man 
(whom he had a little before let out of prison) : who 
thereupon gathered and supposed it would come to pass 
that the Queen should not long live, and foreshadowed 
the same to divers his friends."! Cole further asserts, 
that in the repulsive negotiation for Richard's marriage 
with his niece Elizabeth (afterwards Queen to Henry VH.) 
commenced apparently even before Anne's death, Rother- 
ham was made use of.| I have not found the authority 
on which he makes this assertion, and should wish to 

* See " Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III. 
and Henry VII.," edited by James Gairdner, pp. 64 — 67. 

t Guest, p. loi, quoting Polydore Vergil. 

^ Guest, p. 92. 



CHAPTER IX] LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM'S PUBLIC LIFE. IO7 

discredit it ; the whole transaction, in which the niece 
was eager, the mother-Queen incredibly weak and forgetful 
of her awful wrongs, is loathsome reading. But the time 
reeks with these horrible and unnatural surprises. Buck- 
ingham, who was Richard's instrument in dethroning the 
boy Edward by proclaiming him a bastard, was the 
husband of the Queen-Mother's sister! Hence it is in 
hints like this of Cole that we feel, as has been re- 
peated so often, how the scantiness of the known facts 
debars us from really estimating Rotherham's character. 
Our hesitation is slightly increased as we 
Incidents in ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ Rotherham in the first 
Henry YII.'s 

Rei^n Y^sl^ of Henry VII. The victory of Bosworth 

would, we should have thought, be welcome 
to him (Aug. 22, 1485). He used the occasion to obtain 
from Henry VII. the Impropriation of Almondbury to his 
College of Jesus : Henry says in the deed of grant, that 
he has done it in order to acknowledge his gratitude to 
the Eternal King, who has lately given him victory 
(Gratiam fateri Eterno Regi, qui nuper nobis victoriam 
praebuit). Later in the year a chance entry shews him 
to us as once more holding one of the very highest 
offices in the State, the office of Lord Treasurer of 
England:* another entry on March 31, i486, shews him 
still occupying it. Is it the beginning of another career 
as a statesman under the new dynasty? No; it is a 
mere ^fiash of brief authority. Lord Dynham was ap- 
pointed Treasurer on July 12 following, and the terms 
of his appointment shew that Sir John Audeley had 

* Among payments in Michaelmas Term, 1485, occurs : " To Thomas 
Abp. of York, treasurer of England, for his fee and diet, £1^^ 6s. 8d." 
Again, March 31, i486 : " To Thos. Abp. of York, treasurer of England, 
touching his diet, reserved in money by the hands of Thos. Stokes, 50s." 
" Materials for the History of the reign of Henry VH.," edited by 
WilHam Campbell, Rolls Series, vol. i., p. 403; vol. 11., p. 226; 
vol, u, p. 499. 



Io8 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

intervened between [him and Rotherham in the office. 
Having no clue to the reason of the dismissal, we 
wonder whether the original appointment of Rotherham 
may possibly lie further back than we suppose, and 
be the work of Richard instead of Henry : Henry finding 
him Treasurer, and so in charge of the regalia for his 
coronation, but having no special interest in him, and 
so feeling no obligation to retain him long. 

Rotherham's name is again found among the Triers 
of Petitions in the Parliaments of Henry VH.* He was 
one of the great nobles named as a Feoifee in the 
deed (similar to that made by Edward IV.) providing 
for the execution of the King's Will, when Henry was 
contemplating the invasion of France.f In 1489, his 
name is joined with those of the Earl of Northumberland, 
the Abbot of St. Mary's, York, and the Mayor of York, 
and others as a Commission to enquire into the very 
serious insurrections in York against payment of the 
subsidy. The levy was badly handled by Northumber- 
land — who was slain in his house for it by the people — 
and grew into a serious rebellion. Rotherham was one 
of the witnesses to the creation of Arthur as Prince of 
Wales and Earl of Chester, Nov. 29, 1490. J When 
Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.) was created Duke 
of York, " th' archbisshopp of York" was present, but 
not "in pontificalibus " (Nov. i, 1494). In the three 
days' tournament which followed he was also among 
the spectators.! 

* Nov. 9, 1487 ; Jan. 13, 1488 ; Oct. 17, 1491 ; Oct. 14, 1495 ; Jan. 10, 
1496 — Rolls of Parliament. 

t Ibid. 

J "Materials for the History of the Reign of Henry VII.": edited by 
William Campbell, vol. 11., page 443 — 543. 

§ " Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III, and 
Henry VII." : edited by James Gairdner, pp. 393 — 403. 



CHAPTER X. 
ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. 

"The struggle between the sentiments and interests of the fief- 
holder and the sentiments and interests of the priests." 

GuizoT, " History of Civilization." 

Botherham as a Bishop — Archbishop Botherham's Begisters 
— The Boutine of a Bishop's Work — Dealings with the 
Monasteries — The Baronial State of a Bishop — The Manors of 
the See of Bochester — The Manors of the See of Lincoln — The 
Manors of the See of York — The Besidences of the Archbishop 
of York — London Besidences — Nottinghamshire Besidences — 
Hunting at Southwell — Palace of York — Cawood — Bishop- 
thorpe. 



Rotherham 
as a 



TN the life of Rotherham, as in that of 
far more distinguished Chancellors, the 



Bishop. ^°^^ °^ ^^^ bishop is of less interest than 
that of the statesman. Yet a study of the 
routine and the baronial state of a mediaeval bishop 
has its attractions ; although it lies not on the broad 
historic road of the Wars of the Roses, but on a garden 
path only casually trodden even by the ecclesiastical 
historian. The old registers of the bishops, though kept, 
not for biographical purposes, but, like those of the 
present day, for business reasons of the utmost con- 
sequence to the revenues, finance and legal security 
of the possessions of the Church, are full of incidental 
information about it. The re-production of Archbishop 
Gray's Register by Canon Raine is a vivid illustration 
of the insight into the life of the mediaeval prelate, 
which would be open to us, if some other of the richer 



no ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Registers could be similarly set forth: and his "Lives 

of the Archbishops," and " Extracts from the Northern 

Registers" teem with racy matter from the same sources. 

Three volumes of Archbishop Rotherham's 

Rotherham's Registers remain, two at York and one 
Registers* 

at Lmcoln — all in excellent preservation. 

Through the great courtesy of Mr. Hudson, the Registrar 
at York, and Mr. William Smith, the Bishop's Secretary 
at Lincoln, I have had the freest access to these 
Registers, and I hope that an outline of the impressions 
they have left on my mind will be pardoned by any 
who read these pages. I do not think that they can be 
ranked among the most distinctive of their class. Con- 
sidering the terrible nature of the times, it is surprising 
how slight are the echoes which they contain of the 
historical unrest ; and there are no very marked acts of 
Diocesan statesmanship.* 

•Archdeacon Perry says in regard to the Lincoln Register: "It is 
not easy to discover any special Diocesan Acts " (Lincoln Diocesan 
Magazine, Article on Rotherham, January, 1893). The Pope's Bull of 
excommunication against all who spoke against the claim of Henry VII. 
to the throne was published in the Diocese. There are documents 
concerning the subsidies of the clergy to the King at various times. A 
letter to the Diocese announces the election of Alexander VI. as Pope. 
Of minor diocesan acts the annexation of the prebend of Driffield to 
the Precentorship and Laughton to the Treasurership of the Cathedral 
at York may be mentioned. The benefice of Campsall was appropriated 
to the nuns of Walling- Wells, and its Vicarage to Cambridge University. 
Among the notices of acts of the Synod of the Northern Provinces, a 
decree (Feb. 27, I48|) ordering the celebration of the Festival of The 
Transfiguration on Aug. 6 is interesting. 

This extract will interest Rotherham people: — "In the name 
of God, Amen. The VII. day of Julye, the yer of our Lord 
MCCCCLXXI. Before you most Reuerend fader in God Thomas 
by the grace of God Archbyshop of York sittyng in iudge- 
ment in yor maner of Scroby within ye diocess of York I 
Richard Parkyn .... of the p'yshe of Rotherham and yor forsaid 
diocesse oppenly knowlegge and confess that by the space of VI yers 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. Ill 

The common run of all episcopal registers 

The Routine • , -i r i- j 

consists necessarily of routine documents 
of a . -^ . 

Bishop's Work connected with collations and institutions to 

benefices, consecrations and development of 
the fabrics of churches, tithes, glebe, and church property. 
One of the interesting points in the mediaeval ones is the 
relation and powers of the bishop as regards the monastic 
bodies. Epochs in the history of churches and the great 
Minsters {e.g. at Ripon and Beverley) are often marked 
by the grant of an indulgence to subscribers and 
benefactors. Of darker significance are the reconciliations 
of churches after deeds of bloodshed within their sacred 
walls. Grants of oratories or private chapels are very 
frequent. Pensions out of the benefices to retiring in- 
cumbents are common. Examples of the appropriation 
of benefices have already been mentioned, and will recur 
in a few pages. Licenses for the hearing of confessions, 
and admissions to the veil in widowhood are among the 
things which catch the eye as we turn over the old 

and mor' haue vsed charmes by thredys and p ' yers don and said 

upon cloths of seke folkys with rehersall of ther names whereby a 
certainn spiritt hath be customed to appear to me and shew and tell 
me the disese of seke folkys And that Spiritt I honored and worshipped 
and in hym believed supposyng ... he had been a good angell and 
my doyng good and lawful : which I know now certaynly by the 
instruction and information of you most reuerend fader is erroneous 
and agaynst the det'mination of holy church and the said spirit to be 
my gostly enemy and a wicked spiritt and haue vsed him to the grete 
displeas' of God and hurt of my soule, wherefor I forsake and abiur' 
my forsaid error and all oder that be agaynst the det'minacion of holy 
church and swere uppon the holy euangelyes nev' to vse from hens 
forward any of the p'misses nor gyve credence nor faith to them. In 
witnesse whereof I make herewith with myn owne hand the signe of 
the crosse. + " Rotherham's order follows in Latin. The man is at 
solemn mass in the church at Rotherham, when there is a large con- 
gregation of people, in loud and intelligible voice to pronounce, narrate 
and confess in English this confession which he has made to the 
Archbishop. 



112 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

pages. Another class of documents, under such headings 
as purgation, absolution, monition, excommunication, &c., 
reminds us of the immense work of the bishop, as the 
sole judge of offences committed by persons who have 
received even the first tonsure, and, practically, of all 
persons who possessed the rare accomplishment of being 
able to read ; and of his tremendous disciplinary powers 
in regard not only to ecclesiastical offences, such as 
heresy, simony, violation of sanctuary, contempt of re- 
ligion, but all sins against morals. The large section of 
Wills in the York Register illustrates the testamentary 
jurisdiction of the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop. 
The great name of the Pope frequently arrests us : not 
much, so far as I have observed, in judicial appeals, 
but in dispensations for marriage within the forbidden 
degrees, ordination of illegitimates, tenure of benefices in 
plurality. The Bulls read in the Minster after the 
translation of Rotherham to York are given at the outset 
of the Register.* As to the regularity, frequency, and 
local distribution of confirmations, no information can be 
gathered. So also there are no records of any cycle of 
periodical visitations. Probably in each case districts 
easily accessible from the very numerous houses of re- 
sidence were arranged. Mr. Wakeman shews that there 
was great neglect as to confirmation in the 14th and 
15th centuries.! The information about ordinations is 

* The Popes are Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and the infamous 
Alexander VI. In one of the acknowledgments of receipt of a Bull, 
the leaden seal, which is the real bulla is described as " bulla plumbea 
cum filis cerisis rubri et crocei colorum more Romanse curiae bullata." 
The difficulty and expense of obtaining a dispensation for Holy Orders 
in the case of a bastard has a certain bearing on Rotherham's alterna- 
tive name of Scott. 

t " Usually children were brought for confirmation as soon after 
baptism as a bishop could be procured. . . . But ... it is clear that 
. . . the number of unconfirmed was very large. A constitution of 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. II3 

exceedingly full. One of the things which surprises us is 
the immense number of those ordained, as compared with 
our time. The numbers are swollen by those admitted 
only to the minor orders of acolyte and sub-deacon, 
frequently with no intention of proceeding to the higher 
degrees, and those ordained for monastic life. One of 
the abuses of the age is marked in the Lincoln Register 
by the occasional class " acolyte beneficiati," youths 
holding benefices without the power of discharging the 
duties of a priest. The ordinations are held very fre- 
quently, chiefly at the Ember seasons : there are forty- 
eight ordinations during the eight years of the Lincoln 
episcopate. In that vast diocese, extending from the 
Humber to the Thames, the cathedral occupies a very 
subordinate position as an ordination centre : even in the 
city of Lincoln ordinations are often held at St. Peter- 
at-Arches, St. Thomas, St. Benedict s, or St. Martin's ; 
and they are distributed over the area of the diocese ; 
at Sleaford, Stamford, and Lyddington, in Rutland ; 
St. Martin's, Leicester ; Thame and Banbury, in Oxford- 
shire ; Northampton and Towcester ; Buckden, in Hunt- 
Archbishop Peckham, passed in 1281, orders that because there are 
numberless cases of persons who have grown old without the grace of 
confirmation, none shall be admitted to communion who is not con- 
firmed, except at the point of death ; and a constitution of Archbishop 
Reynolds, passed in 1322, provides that adults about to be confirmed 
shall make their confessions first, and receive the sacrament of con- 
firmation fasting. This shows that cases of adult confirmation were by 
no means rare." (Introduction to the •' History of the Church of 
England," by H. O. Wakeman.) Archdeacon Perry in his " Life of St. 
Hugh," gives a quotation from the mediaeval Biography (Magna 
Vita) which shows the slovenly irreverence of some bishops. " I once 
saw a bishop .... sitting on his horse, sprinkling children with the 
consecrated Chrism. The children were screaming and terrified among 
the prancing horses, while those who were in charge of them were 
buffeted by the bishop's retinue for not preserving better order." 
pp. 228, 229. 



114 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

ingdonshire; Wycombe, in Bucks, &c. In the northern 
diocese they are held at York ; by no means however 
exclusively in the Minster, but at the churches of the 
Augustine Canons, the Carmelites, Friars Preachers 
(Dominican), Friars Minor (Franciscans).* One ordina- 
tion in the Lincoln Registrar has an unique interest, 
held at King's College, Cambridge, by Rotherham 
personally in Sept., 1473, while resident as Chancellor. 

When we remember that Yorkshire and 

eaiings Lincolnshire were the strength and field of 
with the , , . , , , , ,,. • 1 

Monasteries. * ^^ ™°^* formidable rebellion against the 
suppression of the smaller religious houses, 
the Pilgrimage of Grace, and that there were nearly 
fifty houses in Yorkshire, nearly forty in Lincolnshire, 
and a larger number than this in the other counties of 
that diocese, — all of them, except those of the Cistercian 
Order, and some great houses, such as Crowland and 
St. Albans, under episcopal jurisdiction — the transactions 
with the monasteries are unaccountably, disappointingly 
few. The Lincoln Register would seem to indicate that 

* The provision of churches and clergy in the Middle Ages is a rebuke 
to the Reformed Church. Some years ago it was brought home to me 
by a study of the Fens of Lincolnshire. A line of magnificent churches 
stretches from Spalding to Lynn, with an enormous tract of fen on the 
one side, and marsh (reclaimed since the reign of Charles L from the 
sea) on the other. From that line the men of the Middle Age advanced 
on the Morass of the Fens, and as they reclaimed it, planted churches 
everywhere : from the reign of Charles onwards the men of the same 
parishes have won enormous tracts on the other side from the sea : 
but until recent times not a church was erected. The number of 
churches in the old episcopal cities (or, as we saw above in Cambridge) 
is quite out of proportion to modern provision. Mr. Wakeman esti- 
mates the benefices of England in the Middle Ages at 8,000, and the 
parochial clergy at 10,000, in a population which was probably under 
five millions. A constitution of Archbishop Laughton provided three or 
four priests to every church with a large parish. " History of Church 
of England," p. 260. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. 115 

the monasteries were left utterly to themselves. In the 
York Register there are several records of the oath of 
obedience and pensions to the heads of houses: among 
these there is a pension to the abbot of St. Mary's, 
York.* There are two or three instances of appropria- 
tions of benefices to monasteries on the ground of their 
poverty : Alnwick Abbey represents its impoverishment 
as resulting from the raids of the Scottish borderers. 
Now and then Rotherham exercises his right of removing 
inmates from one convent to another for some discip- 
linary reason. A canon of Bridlington, who has been 
stripped of his frock and expelled, appeals to the 
Archbishop, and after enquiry by a commission the 
Prior is commanded to reinstate him. To Doncaster 
people the seclusion of Elizabeth EUtoft as an anchorite 
in the Chapel of St. Edmund on Doncaster bridge is 
interesting. But of serious visitation and enquiry into 
the internal condition of a religious house there are 
only two notable examples. The Injunctions made by 
Rotherham after his visitation of the Nunnery of 
Appleton (1480), are given in full by Guest. The 
stringent orders to the sisters — not to be out at night; 
to sleep in the dortour and not in their chambers ; to 
avoid ale-houses and the water-side, where strangers 
resort ; not to go on pilgrimages or visit friends ; not to 
allow men (religious or secular) within the precincts, 
lodging under the dortour, or communing, eating or 
drinking with sisters in any private place— cannot by 
the most charitable interpretation be conceived as 
directed against remotely possible, and utterly exceptional 

* Here is an instance of the oath of obedience: — "In the name of 
God. Amen. I Elizabeth Darell chosen and confermed Priorisse of 
Cis'tien order . . . shall serve and be obedient to my most Reu'end 
fader in God . . . and to his Successors . . . and ther officers and 
ministers in all . . . lawful commandements." 



Il6 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

evils. The second case is that of the Priory of Bolton 
(1482). The Prior is convicted of lax rule, extravagance, 
and immorality. The punishment is not deposition, but 
temporary suspension and removal to the priory at 
Gisburne. At the end of the term, Poteman, the Vicar- 
General, visits Bolton, bids the monks receive the Prior 
back again, and draws up a body of injunctions for the 
maintenance of good morals and proper care of the 
estates, which are signed by all the brethren.* 

In the subscriptions of the documents in the 

Registers the name of the place at which 
State of a , ^ . ^ . , ^ , 

BishoD ^ '^ were signed is always stated: and these 

names, read in connection with the episcopal 

estates as given in the " Valor Ecclesiasticus " of 

Henry VIII., with the local history of the places, and with 

other known facts regarding mediaeval bishops, open out 

a view of the life of the bishop in those times, to which 

we have no modern parallel. They shew us of course 

* The special value of entries like these in the episcopal register is 
their bearing on that re-hearing of the case for the monasteries, which 
the labours of Dom Gasuet, Canon Dixon, and Professor Gairdner's 
edition of " The Gromwell Correspondence," have produced. Evidence 
as to the condition of the monasteries derived from the Registers is not 
liable to the discount chargeable against that of Cromwell's emissaries. 
It is also very desirable that a much closer investigation should be made 
into the general and effective use by the bishops of that right of 
Visitation, which they undoubtedly possessed. Had the power of the 
monks practically made it too troublesome to put it into constant living 
force ? So far as Rotherham's Registers go, the right seems largely 
dormant. But it is not so in Dr. Jessop's volume on " The Visitation 
of the East Anglian Monasteries." It is possible that some readers 
may be surprised to find that bishops had any jurisdiction whatever 
over monasteries. The impression left by many histories of the times 
is that not merely the great houses, but the whole of the monasteries 
were exempt from episcopal control. As a fact the entire mass of 
monasteries confiscated by the first act of Henry, which produced the 
tremendous uprising of the Pilgrimage of Grace, were under the juris- 
diction of the bishops as Visitors. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. 117 

with considerable completeness the places in which he 
resided throughout the year. The list for the year 1487, 
O.S., a quiet year, when Rotherham's stateman's life was 
ended and Henry VIII. was settled on his throne, is a 
good sample of the distribution. It gives us — York, 
April 8 ; Bishopthorpe, April 21 ; Cawood, April 27, May 5, 
May 17, and June i ; York, June 6 ; Beverley, June 16-18 ; 
Cawood, June 25 ; Southwell, June 29 ; Park de Reste, 
July 21; York, August 4; Ripon, Aug. 23; Cawood, 
Sept. 12 ; Battersey, Sept. 17 ; Cawood, Oct. 4, 5 ; Bat- 
tersey, Dec. 2 ; Westminster, Jan. 2. These names are 
not to be considered as indications of formal visitation 
tours : there is no trace of this in the registers : the 
places, whether within or without the diocese, are all 
manors or residences of the Archbishop. In the place 
of our modern experience of a single palace within the 
diocese, and some (perhaps only occasional) London 
house, we have to conceive the mediaeval bishop, like 
the great barons, as possessor of a number of scattered 
manors and houses, some within some without the 
diocese, whose distribution has arisen out of accidental 
historical grants, without any special view to the pro- 
vision of centres for diocesan superintendence. In these 
manors the bishop had all the responsibilities, rights, 
and duties of the feudal lord and vassal. He had to 
pay scutage and discharge the special duties of his 
tenure ; he had to manage his estate, hold his court, 
and administer justice : he had rights of granting mar- 
riage, exercising wardship, escheats, &c., as well as the 
ordinary rights over his tenants. These feudal claims 
might in general be left in the hands of a steward of 
the manor : but the bishop's personal presence was 
occasionally a necessity. The movements of the bishop 
from manor to manor were utilized no doubt for the 



Il8 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

discharge of his sacred office in the districts that sur- 
rounded them, but they were dictated chiefly by secular 
needs, by the superiority of certain manors for pleasant 
sojourn and the accommodation of a great retinue, and 
also by the insanitary dangers which arose out of 
continual residence in one place. 

Nothing exhibits so forcibly the pomp and 
The Manors ^^^^^ ^^ ^ mediaeval prelate as these terri- 
01 the Bishop . , . _,^ , 

of Rochester tonal possessions. We can observe it even 

in the small and comparatively poor diocese 
of Rochester,* which possessed in the time of Henry VIII. 
only nine manors, two of these lying out of the diocese 
(Frekenham in Cambridgeshire, and Middleton Cheyney in 
Northamptonshire). The manors were small ones, com- 
pared with those of Lincoln and York. But at Bromley 
in Kent certainly, and at Hailing, there were consider- 
able houses. The license for fortification of Bromley is 
dated in 1312 : at Hailing the gatehouse and some of 
the walls of the Hall and Chapel (dated 1320 — 1330) are 
mentioned by Parker in his " Domestic Architecture of 
the Middle Ages,t as still in existence. 

Attached to the vast bishopric of Lincoln, 

„ ,? ^°^^ then only excelled in wealth by Canterbury 
of the Bishop 
of Lincoln ^"^ York, Durham, Winchester, and Ely, J 

the " Valor Ecclesiasticus " gives seventeen 

principal manors and fifteen smaller estates. A very 

valuable group lay in Notts., then part of the York 

diocese : the chief part of the rest lay scattered over the 

many counties of the bishopric; as at Biggleswade in 



* The nett income of the See of Rochester is given in the ' Valor 
Ecclesiasticus" as ;^4ii. 

t Vol. III., pp. 304. 406. 

\ The nett income of Lincoln in the " Valor Ecclesiasticus " is given 
as ^1,962, 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. IIQ 

Bedfordshire, Dorchester (the original site of the See), 
Thame and Cropredy in Oxfordshire, the town of 
Leicester, Spaldwick in Huntingdonshire, and the places 
where the great houses of the See were situated. Of 
these houses ten are specified by Browne Willis in his 
" History of Cathedrals ;" and they are strongholds and 
fortresses rather than homes of peace. Licenses of 
Crenellation were granted for Lyddington in Rutland, 
Nettleham and Stow in Lincolnshire, by Edward Hl.t 
Sleaford was a castle. The castle at Banbury twice 
withstood a siege in the war of Charles. The ruins of 
Newark castle, which was besieged by the Dauphin, and 
in which King John died, still remain. So also do those 
of the great stronghold which constituted the palace at 
Lincoln. Beside these there was a great house at 
Woburn, and Lincoln Place, the London residence in 
Chancery lane. 

We have left to the last Buckden in Huntingdonshire, 
which only passed out of the possession of the See in 
the first half of this century, and which is intimately 
associated with Bishop Williams and Bishop Sanderson, 
because here we have still in existence a stately piece 
of building from the very hand of Rotherham. The 
character of the site has been much obliterated by 
successive destructions. Rotherham himself probably de- 
stroyed part of the earlier building of Grosseteste. Leland 
says that he "clene translated the Hall." This Hall 
— which is described in the Parliamentary Survey of 
1647, as twenty yards long and twelve yards broad, half 
covered with lead, the rest with stone slate, and which, 
like the much larger hall in the palace at Lincoln, was 
divided into a centre and two aisles by pillars and 

t See Parker's "Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages," vol. iii., 
p. 411. 



I20 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

arches, with a large porch vaulted with stone — was 
destroyed by the Commissioners of the Commonwealth. 
Bishop Williams had spent much on repairs of the 
fabric, beautification of the outer courts with fair alleys 
and grassplats, and of the cloisters with stained glass : 
" but where," writes his biographer Hackett, " are the 
remains of all this cost and beauty ? All is dissipated, 
defaced, plucked to pieces to pay the army." When 
Bishop Sanderson came to the See, Isaac Walton says, 
'* he found a great part demolished, and what was left 
standing under visible decay : the reparation of it was 
performed with great speed, care, and charges " by the 
good bishop, who now lies interred in the church at 
Buckden. The main body of the palace, including the 
great chamber, the chapel, and the central court, all 
surrounded by a moat and curtain walls where the 
buildings did not protect it, still remained until the sale 
of the property after Bishop Kaye's removal to Rise- 
holme. The last relic of the moat, which had been 
chiefly filled in by Bishop Pretyman, was then destroyed; 
a luxurious, graceful Elizabethan house with lawns and 
gardens was built on the main site of the old palace ; 
and the only ancient remains at present are the brick 
battlemented wall which protects part of the outer 
enclosure, a brick gatehouse with the almonry adjoining 
it, built by Russell, Rotherham's successor as bishop and 
Chancellor, a piece of curtain-wall (with a platform for 
the defenders, and archways containing loop-holes be- 
neath), and at the end of this wall the " brike tower," 
which Leland tells us was built by Rotherham. This 
"brike tower" is a magnificent specimen of the brick- 
work of that age, and the noblest remaining monument 
of Rotherham's fame as a builder. It is a rectangular 
building occupying a site about twenty yards by twelve. 




The Old Tower at Buckden : probably built by Archbishop Rotherham. 
From a Photograph by Messrs. Davis & Sons, Halifax. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. 121 

It is of great height, the octangular turrets at the four 
corners rising to the level of the summit of the church 
tower close by. The brickwork is very beautiful : a cross 
in colored brick is delineated on the inner face : the 
square-headed stone windows are perfectly finished. 
Winding staircases occupy two of the turrets. The lower 
storey consisted chiefly of one large room, used as a 
dining-hall in later times ; the two upper storeys seem 
to have been dormitories for some of the great retinue 
of the bishops.* 

Every one of these great houses was furnished for the 
residence of the bishop, every one occurs as a place ot 
dwelling in the Registers. The great palace at Lincoln 
was obviously only one of the many abodes. The business 
of the Chancellor made London a frequent place of 

* This account is mainly derived from a short description of Buckden 

Palace signed K.H.B., accompanied by plates of the palace executed 

by Benjamin Rudge, of Bedford ; published at Oundle in 1839, before 

the destruction of the palace. I am indebted to Miss Green, of 

Buckden, for the loan of it. In this book the brick tower is ascribed 

to Bishop Russell, on the ground that his arms (two chevronels 

between three roses), which appear in two places on the gatehouse 

and almonry adjoining, were also on a boss of the ceiling of the great 

dining-room in the lower storey of the tower ; and on another boss in this 

ceiling was his Rebus, a throstle with a French legend issuing from its 

beak : " Le Roscelluys je suis." This is excellent evidence for ascribing 

the ceiling to Bishop Russell ; but it is not inconsistent with the 

evidence of Leland (whose information gathered on the spot so few 

years afterwards is of great weight) that the fabric was the work of 

Rotherham. It was a great building, and not the only thing Rotherham 

did there in his eight years' episcopate : the interior may have been 

unfinished. Sir Arthur Marshall, the present owner, who is necessarily 

familiar with the buildings, confirms my impression, that there is a 

greater finish and delicacy about the tower than about the gatehouse 

which is Russell's work. The quotation from the Parliamentary Survey, 

and the comparison of the Hall at Buckden with that at Lincoln is 

from an account of " The Ancient Episcopal Palace at Lincoln." by 

Edward James Willson, F.S.A., in " Memoirs ... of the County and 

City of Lincoln," p. 5. 

I 



122 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

domicile. The Visitation of the diocese would be con- 
ducted either by radiation from these centres, or the 
laborious journeys to and fro between house and house. 
The revenues of the diocese of York were 

rather larger than those of Lincoln.* Not- 
of the . , ,. , ^ . , 

See of York withstanding the aggregate of counties under 

Lincoln, the area of York diocese, which 
•contained Notts, as well as Yorkshire, and a considerable 
tract of country outside of Yorkshire belonging to the 
Archdeaconry of Richmond, was greater still. The records 
of the "Valor Ecclesiasticus " as to the Manors of the 
Archbishop are imperfect, so that we cannot gain so 
complete an account of them. But we can obtain a 
sufficient idea of them for our purpose from other sources. 
In a Bull of Innocent III. twenty-one manors are con- 
firmed to Archbishop Gray, the bulk of which occur in 
Rotherham's Register evidently as the property of the 
See. There was a good deal of change and forfeiture 
of manors, though they may not necessarily have been 
manors of the See, connected with Archbishop Neville's 
varied favour with Edward IV. Bishopthorpe also is an 
instance of a new manor added to the See by Arch- 
bishop Gray himself. f The number of manors must have 

* The income of the Archbishop of York is given by Browne Willis 
as ;f 2,035 3S. jd. In the Calendar of Harleian Manuscripts, vol. i., 
2370, Rotherham's own income 'is given in the twenty-second year of 
Edward IV, as £'2,017 8s. id. 

t Archbishop Gray's Register, " Surtees Society," p. 125. I am in- 
debted for this reference, and much information that will occur below, 
to two very interesting articles on " The Pre- Reformation Residences 
of the Archbishops of York," in "The Church Times," Feb. 25, and 
March 4, i8g8. The names of the manors are Wilton, Wetwang, 
Burton, Patrington, Schiteby(?), Helgedon {?), Beverley, Ripon, Hex- 
tildesham (Hexham), Otley, Shireburn, Southwell, Laneham, Sutton 
(in Holderness), Scroby, Chirchedon, Ottingdon, Brenangenword (?) 
Rigby (?), Tirhngton, Stalliburg. The two last are perhaps Tirlangton 
(or Langton), Leicestershire, and StalHngborough, Lincolnshire. Those 
marked with a note of interrogation I do not know. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. 1 23 

been far greater in Rotherham's time, for in 1544 Robert 
Holgate transferred to the Crown " thirteen manors in 
Northumberland and the neighbouring counties, forty in 
Yorkshire, six in Nottinghamshire, and eight in Gloucester- 
shire " in return for certain Rectories and Vicarages.* 
Here, as in the case of Lincoln, it is obvious that it 
was not diocesan administration which determined the 
acquisition of the properties. 

The state of the Archbishop is more 

signally illustrated by considering his houses 

of the °^ residence. The *' Archbishop of York had 

Archbishops some fourteen or fifteen at least," and it 

of York. will be within our scope to give an account 

of one or two of them.t 

Three residences in or near London are 
London named in Rotherham's Register. The one 
within the City is only mentioned once, but 
Archbishop. ^^ terms which imply habitual sojourn (in 
domibus nostre solite residentie juxta Flete 
Street), a house near Fleet Street. A second house is 
the celebrated residence of the mediaeval bishops, the 
name of which still lingers in " York Place," Whitehall. 
Here it was that he chiefly resided in the closing days 
of Edward's reign : from this house he issued at mid- 
night to see the Queen, as she was preparing to flee 
into sanctuary : and from its windows each morning he 
saw, as Grafton says, the " river full of boats of the 
Duke of Gloucester watching that no one should go to 

* Drake's "Eboracum," p. 451, quoted from "The Church Times." 

t The residences named in Rotherham's Register are those mentioned 
below, and Ripon and Beverley. Otley, an important Yorkshire house, 
and Churchdown and Oddington in Gloucestershire (connected with the 
manors there), are not mentioned. But the names in the register of 
course do not give a complete account of the Archbishop's movements, 
but simply of the places at which documents were signed, 



124 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Sanctuary or pass unsearched." The great kitchen there 
was built by him.* The later history of the house — 
the splendid additions by Wolsey, the forfeiture to 
Henry VIII. who again improved it, the fire of the 
palace, the re-building by Inigo Jones, the awful tragedy 
of Charles I.'s execution, which is associated with the 
banqueting-room — are all well known to us. The third 
house, which is named quite as frequently as York 
Place, was at Battersey. A reminiscence of it still re- 
mains in the name of " York Road." The manor, with 
400 acres of land, had only been bought (1477) by his 
predecessor Booth, who had built the house on it. The 
land may have been made into a park. 

Scroby, a hamlet in the parish of Sutton 
The Notts. near Bawtry, Notts., a very old possession 

„ ^ of the See, was one of Rotherham's favourite 

Scpoby, 
Southwell residences. At the foundation of the 

bishopric of Southwell, Bishop Trollope's 

gift to the new See of the old Southwell house of the 

Archbishops near the Minster drew much attention to 

the existing remains of it. It was ruined, like Buckden, 

by coming into the hands of the Parliament (1646) : but 

the turrets and battlemented wall of the enclosure, and 

the great hall, converted into a modern dwelling-house, 

still enable us to conceive its former greatness. Built 

originally in the fourteenth century by Archbishop 

Thoresby (according to Dugdale), it had been largely 

altered in the fifteenth century by Archbishop Kempe, 

(according to Rastall, the Southwell historian). Rotherham 

added '' a bakery and brewery and some rooms near the 



* Guest, p. 97-133. The latter page gives the eariiest account of the 
several buildings by Rotherham, translated from Stubbs' " Lives of the 
Archbishops of York." See " Church Times," as above, and Parker's 
" Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages," vol. 11., pp. 237, 238. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. I25 

water." But more interesting than the bakery and 
brewery is another act of Rotherham regarding the 
manor of Southwell, because it opens out that curious 
side of the life of the mediaeval prelate, the possession 
of great parks, and their personal delight in venerie. 
Southwell to this day is redolent of the forest : in the 
palmy days of Sherwood it was far more so. Some 
former Archbishop had gained, no doubt by license from 
the V King, the grant of a piece of the forest as a park, 
probably with the privilege of a deer-leap, which would 
enable the royal deer to leap into its enclosure. But 
this had not satisfied Rotherham : and consequently in 
his own domain (I think) he constructed a new park of 
three hundred acres without obtaining the royal license. 
Acts of this sort were jealously resented under the forest 
laws : but it was not until the vacancy of the See after 
the death of Savage, Rotherham 's successor, that any 
cognizance of this illegality was taken by the Crown 
(twenty-fourth:! year of Henry VII.) Notice may have 
then been drawn to it by some hunting of James Savage, 
of Southwell, doubtless a relative of the last Archbishop, 
who on Sept. lo and other days " hunted there and 
chased and slew twelve male deer and twenty female 
deer to the heavy damage of our lord the King." 
Whether Rotherham himself was a hunter there is no 
evidence : Savage certainly was an ardent one : so also 
had Nevile been. But it is to be remembered that these 
parks were maintained not only for love of the chase but 
for the purposes of commissariat, and variation of fare 
in the great hospitalities of the prelates. Both in 
Lincoln and York diocese there were several. The 
description of Stow in Rotherham's Register is always 
" my park at Stow : " Cawood had its great park. The 
park at Rest, mentioned above (p. 117), was a park 



126 Archbishop rotherham. 

between Sherburn and Cawood, originally imparked by 
Archbishop Gray. (See *' History of Sherburn and Ca- 
wood," by W. Wheater, p. 223).* 

It will be enough to touch on three among 
The Yorkshire ^^le Yorkshire houses of residence. Of the 

„ , „ , magnificent palace at York nothing remains 
York, Cawood, t- r & 

Bishopthorpe. ^"^ *^® ^^°^^ °^ ^^^ Mmster library (origm- 

ally the chapel) and a few arches of the 

hall : it once extended from the residence to the Deanery. 

The destruction of the great hall was the disgraceful 

work of the Elizabethan Archbishop Young : but a great 

part of the buildings remained until this century. It 

appears in Rotherham's Register rather as a place 

occasionally visited for a day or two than one used for 

prolonged stay. Richard and his Queen, as we have 

* See Guest, pp. 164, 165. He translates the ' True Bill ' found by 
the jury in Chancery in full. They found that " Thomas Rotherham 
... on 1st October, 20 Edward IV., not having obtained a royal 
license therefor, newly made and imparked a certain parcel of land at 
Southwell . . . containing three hundred acres of land at least, now 
commonly called the New Park, and placed stags and deer there ; and 
kept the said three hundred acres so imparked as his own park all his 
life, and the deer there placed he turned and killed for his own use 
against the form of the statute for that case made and provided." 
They then gave Savage's similar action during his tenure of the great 
park, concluding with the account of the hunting by James Savage. 
Archbishop Savage is said by Wheater to have been •' a keen hunts- 
man." " The houses of Cawood and Scroby were converted into 
hunting seats." In Shirley's book on "Ancient Deer Parks," there is 
a mine of curious information as to the enormous quantity of ground 
occupied by parks in Tudor times, the parks of the bishops (Canter- 
bury had twenty), and the use of fresh and salted venison. Harrison's 
introduction to Hollinshed reads like a modern Socialist's spleen against 
this withdrawal of the lands from cultivation. Shirley quotes a curious 
direction from the King (' Close Rolls', 20 Edward I.) for the capture 
of a hundred does in the parks of the bishopric of Ely, then vacant, 
and the salting of the flesh, and preservation of it in casks. The 
" homicide " of one of the keepers by Archbishop Abbott when hunting 
is well known. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. l^'^ 

seen, lay there on their State visit to the city. Cawood 
on the Ouse, in the great plain of York, about six miles 
from Selby, was the last home of Rotherham. The old 
gateway, on which Kempe's arms with the Cardinal's 
Hat are carved, is almost all that remains of the once 
splendid stronghold. Savage, as we have said, loved it 
for its proximity to the park at Reste, which lay between 
Cawood and another manor of the Archbishops at 
Sherburn. In earlier days it had been valuable for its 
strength. Fortified in the reign of Henry HI., it was 
much used as a winter residence by Edward I. and his 
Queen during the wars with Scotland, and was visited 
by Edward H. Enlarged in the reign of Richard H., 
enriched by the building of the great Hall at the 
beginning of the 15th century, and again by Cardinal 
Kempe, it was a fitting place for the proud banquet to 
eighteen hundred people, graced by the presence of 
Richard of Gloucester and all the power of the Neviles, 
which George Nevile gave there on the eve of his 
installation as Archbishop. To Cawood also Wolsey 
retreated after his fall ; and while dreaming of being 
installed in his long-neglected Minster, he was arrested 
there, leaving it only a few days before his death at 
Leicester. 

Surviving its more illustrious sisters, the manor 
house at Thorpe (as it is called in Gray's Register) 
is still a house — the only house of residence — attached 
to the See of York. After the purchase of the manor 
by Archbishop Gray it became known, like Bishop 
Wilton and Bishop Burton, as Bishopthorpe. The 
singular combination at Bishopthorpe of different archi- 
tectural touches — mediaeval, Puritan, Georgian, Victorian 
— all harmonized by time's mellowing hand, makes it 
one of the most interesting among English houses. 



128 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Throughout its changes and amplifications one thing 
has consistently marked it, the absence of the 
martial strength of places like Cawood or Banbury or 
Newark. A manor house at first, when Archbishop Gray 
built the hall, and the beautiful early-English Chapel, 
which has been so tenderly restored, its most salient 
alterations belong to the three last centuries, in which 
keep and moat and battlement have become obsolete. 
It would not be in place in our modest pages to dilate 
on the dining-room (where Scrope was tried before his 
execution), wrecked under the Parliament, and restored 
by Accepted Frewen in the reign of Charles II. : nor on 
the long brick gabled annexe (which gives a home-like 
look to the garden), built during the Commonwealth by 
Colonel White : nor again on the great enlargement by 
Archbishop Drummond (the least attractive portion of 
the building), or the unfortunate encroachment of Arch- 
bishop Harcourt's nurseries. Our true concern is with 
Rotherham's contribution to the building, which is again, 
as at Southwell, somewhat culinary — " a brewery and 
bakery with new rooms on the north side towards the 
woods.'"* As we stand below the lovely river front of 
the house, we have to the left the east wall of Gray's 
Chapel and in the centre Gray's Hall as restored in 
17th century style by Accepted Frewen. Tracing the 
stone moulding in the lower part of the wall northward 
till it ceases, we come to the north part of the block 
of the house, built in stone on the river face, but in 
brick towards the garden. This garden front has been 
much altered in late times, and over it is built a poor 
long-backed attic. But the main bulk of it is Rotherham's 
work : and in the basement there are marks of him in 

* Guest, p. 133. 



CHAPTER X.] ROTHERHAM AS A BISHOP. 1 29 

two places : the one a shield with a single buck on it, 
the other with the three bucks trippant impaled with the 
pall, which constituted the ancient arms of the Arch- 
bishopric* 

The baronial state of the mediaeval bishops 

Secularization and of Rotherham has been amply illus- 

or the trated. What was the action of it on the 

„ . , conception of the bishop's office ? The 

Episcopal ^ ^ 

Duty. moral standard was lowered : the direct 

work of the bishop was minimised, sub- 
ordinated, delegated. The Registers give us much 
evidence of this. The singular provision that Rotherham 
should be consecrated " ellswhere than at Canterbury," 
arose probably from some pressure of the King's 
business, which was a more important matter than the 
solemn consecration to Rochester. Out of the 48 
ordinations in the Lincoln episcopate 37 are administered 
by a bishop in partibus, only 11 by Rotherham himself. 
When the Papal Bulls which put him in possession of 
the Archbishopric were read publicly in the Minster at 
York, Rotherham was not present, being engaged at a 
distance (in remotis agente). In the commission at this 
time to William Poteman (Archdeacon of Cleveland) as 
Vicar- General, the reason for the appointment is stated 

* Archbishop Sharp's MS. describes the work of Rothertham thus: — 
" The Pantry and Bakehouse and Chambers over them, even all that 
row of building which now makes the Common Room, the Hall, 
Housekeeper's Room, Bakehouse and Kitchen below, and the Drawing 
Room, the Dining Room, my Study and the other Chambers above." 
His memoranda are of course of the house as it was before the altera- 
tion by Archbishop Drummond. The name of Bishopthorpe is to many 
eloquent of gracious hospitalities both from Archbishop and Mrs. 
Thomson and Archbishop and Mrs. Maclagan. I am further indebted 
to his Grace the present Archbishop for courteously allowing me to 
see Archbishop Sharp's MS.; and also to Rev. Canon Keble, Vicar 
of Bishopthorpe, for his aid in several details. 



130 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

to be, that Rotherham was " prevented by various and 
arduous duties to the King and the realm from coming 
in person to his diocese."* There is no evidence of his 
being in the diocese until Sept. 12, 148 1 (a single deed 
signed at Bishopthorpe), and the next Yorkshire deed is 
dated March 26, i482> at Cawood. The immense business 
transacted by the Vicar-General shews that he stood 
very much, except in such matters as the reconciliation 
of churches after deeds of violence (effected by the Bishop 
of Dromore), in the same relation to the diocese, as a 
Vicar to the Rector of a parish : institutions for instance 
are constantly performed by him. Nor is the state of 
things much improved, when Rotherham 's life as a states- 
man is over. Of the Ordinations throughout the twenty 
years of the episcopate at York, not one is conducted 
by Rotherham himself. The ordaining bishop is always 
William Bishop of Dromore. "Nothing," says Mr. 
Wakeman, " is more astonishing to modern minds than 
the absence of personal duty to their diocese, which is 
so conspicuous in mediaeval bishops. Nothing certainly 
was more injurious to the welfare of the church." The 
Reformation period brought with it, along with other 
ecclesiastical robbery, considerable spoliation of episcopal 
revenue : yet in the interests of the spiritual office of the 
bishops it is not to be regretted. The transference of 
the Estates to the Ecclesiastical Commission has been a 
very real benefit. 

* Quia nos variis et arduis domini nostri Regis et regni impediti 
negotiis ad meam dioci" adhuc personaliter accedere coraode non 
valemus. Register at York. 





^, . ,. .- ; -^ -Li "^'^ ^"-1 ^ i.i 1^4 1 i: 

1 1 ^ ^ i I I s i I i M 1 "rl ' -^ 1 2 ^ * J 

T, i l^ % I '^t^f. ,, I s I 4 Til sc-i •£- 1 r * • ^ 




First Page of the Statutes of the College of Jesus at Rotherham. 



The reduction of scale, as the result of the photographic processes, 
though giving an idea of the Vignette of the Archbishop, the Shields 
and the beauty of the border makes the writing too minute to be read 
without a strong magnifying glass. It runs: 

Uniuersis Sancte matris Ecc'lie filiis presentes literas inspectur' 
Thomas permissione diuina Ebor Archie' pus Anghe primas et Ap'lice 
sedis legatus. Salutem in amplexibus saluatoris. Quia nos Archiep'us 
antedict' perpendentes et considerantes q'd in villa de Rotherham n're 
Ebor dioc' ubi nati fueramus et p' lauacrum sancte regenerac'onis 
renati ubi eciam cum aliis in puberem etatem agentes sine literis 
stetimus, stetissimusque sic indocti illiterati et rudes ad annos 
plurimos nisi q'd gr'a dei vir in grammafica doctus superuenit 
a quo ut a fonte primo instructi deo volente et ut credimus ducatum 
prestante ad statum in quo nu'c sumus peruenimus perueneruntque 
plures alii ad magna. Proinde gratias saluatori reddere cupientes 
et ne ingrati videamus beneficiorumque dei et unde venimus 
arguamur immemores fontem talem ibid' scaturire facere — Doctorem 
scilicet grammatice ibid' stabilire decreuimus pro semper. Secundo 
considerantes q'd ad illam eccl'iam multi p'tinent p'ochiani et 
q'd plures montani ad earn confluunt homines ut melius diligant 
cristi religionem Eccl'iamque eius sepius visitent honorent ut et diligant 
alium in cantu doctum atque sex choristas siue capelle pueros Ut 
diuina honorificentius celebrentur pro p' petuo duximus stabiHendos. 
Tertio q'd multos luce et ingenii acumine preditos Juuenes profert 
terra ilia neque omnes volunt sacerdotii dignitatem et altitudinem 
attingere Ut tales ad artes mechanicas et alia mundum concernencia 
magis habilitentur Ordinauimus tertium socium in arte scribendi et 
computandi scientem et p' itum. Sed quia ars scribendi musica ipsa 
simul et gramatica subordinantur legi diuine et euangelio super istos 
tres socios stabiliumus unum theologum qui ad minus erit Bacallarius 
in theologia qui prepositus p' aliis tribus sociis positus in regimine et 
policia domus vocabitur qui scalam Jacob verbum Jhesu viam in celum 
breuissimam et certissimam in n'tra provincia predicare et collegium 
regere tenebitur, Recolentes jam finahtur q'd sacerdos fuimus indig- 
nissimus quamquam nichil ea p'pter alienum a nobis putemus 
putabimusque unquam quod ad 



CHAPTER XI. 
THE RED COLLEGE AT ROTHERHAM. 

All, all are fled : yet still I linger here ! 
What secret charms this silent spot endear ? 
Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees, 
Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze. 
That casement, arch'd with ivy's brownest shade, 
First to these eyes the light of Heaven conveyed : 
The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown court 
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport 
When nature pleased, for life itself was new, 
And the heart promised what the fancy drew. 

Rogers' " Pleasures of Memory." 



'T^HE loving munificence of Rotherham to 

The Church his native place demands detailed 

at Rotherham. treatment, for the sake of those who now 

know and care for it. Tradition has it, 
that the church, as we see it, which Rickman has 
pronounced *' one of the finest perpendicular churches of 
the North," owes its splendid development to the 
wealth of Thomas. Hunter identified somewhere on the 
building the three bucks trippant which denote him : on 
the side beams of the chancel roof, which could scarcely 
have been erected until the period of Thomas's death, 
his monogram (the letters are not mentioned) is said to 
have been found, as well as those of Henry Carnebull, 
Archdeacon of York, and Thomas Bilton, the last Abbot 
of Rufford.* Hunter also points out that the magnificence 

* Guest, p. 322, 



134 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

of the re-construction of the church seems to suggest 
assistance greater than the natural resources of the town 
would afford : and the history disclosed by the In- 
dulgence for the tower in 1409 which Guest has printed 
(comparatively a small matter) corroborates his contention. 
When we examine the church, the first impression given 
us is that it is the outcome of a single idea. Whether we 
view the great cruciform mass, crowned by its noble tower 
and spire, sitting enthroned as it were above the town ; 
or whether we enter it, and see the springing lightness 
of the arches, the solemn shadows beneath the central 
tower, the beauty of the roofs, the spaciousness and 
height and dignity of the whole interior — one thing alike 
impresses us, the majestic unity of the design. But as 
we look carefully at the details of the masonry, we see 
variations of treatment, which show that the achievement 
of it extended over a series of years, and which may 
mark the impress of more minds than one. I do not 
refer in saying this to the remains of the earlier church. 
The walling of the lower part of the chancel shews 
marks of decorated and even Norman stones. One of 
the most beautiful features of the interior is the pre- 
servation of the decorated windows of the lantern tower, 
which now look towards the roofs within, instead of the 
open heaven. But all this is prior to the time of 
Rotherham : it is the variation in the perpendicular detail 
that concerns us. The stately nave and aisles and 
transepts, the belfry stage and the crocketed spire seem 
fairly uniform. But the external decoration of the South 
Chancel chapel is plainer than that of the aisles, the 
North Chancel chapel windows are quite different in 
design from those of its sister : the arcades in the 
chancel are lower, as if accommodated to the earlier 
decorated roofs, and of poorer design than the delicate 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I35 

arcades of the nave : the clerestory of the chancel — 
later than all these — looks like work of the beginning 
of the i6th century. The whole scheme may well have 
occupied twenty or thirty years : and these dififerences 
may be the result of variation in resources, or ideas, or 
the wishes of donors. On the whole, there is not con- 
clusive evidence that the plan was due to Rotherham's 
conception : it may have originated, as did that of the 
lantern tower, with the Abbey of Ruflford. In the 
execution of it also there are traces of other donors 
besides Rotherham : in addition to the monograms of 
Carnebull and Bilton, there is on the chancel roof the 
trefoil, which is the mark of the Fitzwilliams of Ald- 
warke. We shall see moreover presently that during his 
York episcopate Rotherham laments the insufficiency of 
his means in endowing his College of Jesus, which was 
his favourite scheme for the place. At the same time 
the known precedents at Cambridge and Oxford, and the 
fixed attention which we shall observe given to the town 
for more than twenty years afford a very strong pre- 
sumption that the wealth of Thomas was a very large 
factor in both the origination and the execution of this 
august re-construction of the old church of his boyhood. 
The only thing in the new church known 

The Altar with certainty as the work of Rotherham 

and Chantry , , .. , ■ , -vt r 

- J was an altar dedicated in the Name oi 

Jesus. On July 28, 1480, he purchased from 

Edward IV. a license for the foundation of a chantry, 

at an altar '* newly-constructed, built and dedicated by 

him to the glory, praise and honour of Our Lord Jesus 

Christ," in which a chaplain was to celebrate Divine 

service for the health of Edward, his Queen Elizabeth, 

Edward Prince of Wales, and the rest of his children, 

and for that of Rotherham and his benefactors during 



136 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

life ; and for their souls, as well as those of the parents 
of Rotherham and those of all the faithful after death. 
The license also contemplated certain works of piety and 
mercy according to ordinances ... to be made by . . . 
Rotherham.* These last words indicate the germ of the 
foundation of the College of Jesus, which we shall con- 
sider directly : the works of piety and mercy received a 
greater development than he perhaps then contemplated. 
Hunter is probably right in thinking that no endowment 
was eventually made for this chantry by itself. The 
duties here assigned were really in the sequel performed 
by the priests of the College : the altar was annexed to 
it. Besides their other masses, which were to be said in 
the College Chapel the provost and fellows were bound 
to celebrate mass twice in the week, and on festival days 
" in the chapel of Jesus, otherwise called the Chapel of 
St. Katherine in the said Parish Chapel of Rotherham." 
Further, the master-teacher in singing, and the choristers 
were devoutly to sing at the Altar of Jesus on every 
Friday the Mass of Jesus, and an antiphone of Jesus at 
Vesper.f (See further conjectures on this ' Altar of 
Jesus ' in Note I.) 



* See the translation of the deed in full in Guest, p. 130. The 
original is given in Dugdale's " Monasticon," vol. in., p. 1441. (Edition 
by Sir Henry Ellis.) In this it is quite clear that it is not the church 
but the altar, which is spoken of as "newly constructed, &c.," by 
Rotherham (altare infra ecclesiam parochialem de Rotheram . . . . de 
novo constructum aedificatum et dedicatum). Guest has omitted in the 
clause providing for the masses for the dead the very important word 
" parentum " : the masses are to be said for the souls of Edward and 
the rest : and then is added " necnon pro animabus parentum, bene- 
factorum et omnium defunctorum." 

•f- Guest, pp. 113, 114. The Gild of St. Katherine is mentioned in the 
Chantry Certificates as having a net income of cxi.s. ix d. What ar- 
rangement was made for its services is not mentioned. They might 
still be said at the Altar at other times, 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I37 

It is probable that some aid from Rotherham 

^ ^^® was also given to the erection of the very 
of Our Lady 

at the singular Chapel of Our Lady on the Bridge, 

Bridge. which must have been built about the time 

of his translation to York, and which still 
remains, though desecrated by profane use. When the 
College of Jesus had been fully established, the statutes 
directed that the master of song and the six choristers 
should on Saturdays .... eves of the Feasts of the 
Blessed Mary, sing at Vesper an antiphone for her in the 
Chapel upon the Bridge.* 

But the scheme to which Thomas devoted 
The College j^-^ principal wealth was the foundation of 
the College of Jesus : and the scheme is not 
only of interest for its own sake, but for the deep in- 
sight it affords us into the devout and loving character 
of the man. As we study its details we are not only 
reminded of the unrivalled knowledge which he possessed 
of the great educational foundations of his time, but we 
see his intense love for the town and his careful stud)' 
of its needs. The College was no servile copy of what 
he had seen at Cambridge or Oxford, Wingham or 
Beverley, but instinct with individuality. 

The root of it all was, as we have remarked already 
his gratitude to the old grammar teacher of his boy- 
hood, who had taught him on the site chosen for the 
building. The grammar teaching had been the foundation 
of all his greatness. Grammar, as the University of Oxford 
said was the root of the sciences. There should be 
established in Rotherham a priest, who should be either 
technically a master or at the least a capable teacher of 
grammar, A second object (following the order in his 
Will) was to provide a home, where the Chantry priests 
* Guest, p. 114. 



138 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

might live piously without temptation and scandal. 

Thirdly, considering the numbers that frequented the 

church, many of them being rude men from the hills, he 

provides another priest, who shall teach singing, and six 

choristers for the more honourable celebration of Divine 

service, so that men '• may love the religion of Christ the 

better," and " more often visit, honour, and love His 

Church." Fourthly, because " many youths of very quick 

intelligence did not wish to reach the dignity of the 

priesthood," a third priest is to teach " the art of writing 

and reckoning," in order to fit them for mechanical arts 

and occupations. And finally (here the evangelistic spirit 

of the man strongly shows itself) over all these — because 

** writing, music, and grammar are subordinate to the 

divine law and the gospel " — he establishes a Provost, 

who shall at the least be a Bachelor of Divinity of the 

University of Cambridge, and who shall be bound to 

preach in Rotherham, Laxton, Almondbury, and Eccles- 

field, " the ladder of Jacob, the Word of Jesus, the 

shortest and most certain way to heaven."* 

In the last days of Edward IV. " the works 

License from of pjety and mercy " hinted at in the 

e ing or Qj^g^j^j-j-y License had taken larger and de- 
Foundation 
f th C UeSe ^^^^^ shape in Rotherham's mind. On 

of Jesus. January 22, 148:7, in consideration of a 

certain sum of money the King granted 

* See the " Statutes of the College," in Guest, pp. 107 — 109 ; also 
"The Will of 1498," in Guest, p. 137, and below, Note N. As we 
examine the steps by which the aims above were achieved, we shall 
see that this statement of things is not exact, chronologically. Among 
the similar traits in Rotherham's experiences there are the grammar 
and song teachers and the free education at Beverley, the emphatic 
insistence on preaching in the appropriated parishes, the flagellum, and 
several details as to the diet at Lincoln College, Oxford, and the 
quadrangular form of the building. Study of the Statutes will suggest 
others, 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I39 

him a license to found a College at Rotherham, with a 

Provost and two Fellows. One of the Fellows was to 

be a master or a capable teacher of grammar ; the other 

was to be a capable teacher in song. Permission was 

given to enlarge the scope of the College, if increased 

income in the future facilitated it. The duties of the 

Provost and Fellows were to preach the Word of God 

in the parishes round Rotherham, to teach grammar and 

song to all scholars that desired it from any part of 

England, and especially from the county of York, without 

any charge, and to pray for the King and Queen, Prince 

of Wales and royal family, and for Rotherham and his 

parents, &c., &c., with the same provisions as in the 

chantry license. After granting a site, common seal, 

corporate rights, power to hold estates, &c., the license 

appropriates to the College the parish church of Laxton, 

in Nottinghamshire, the patronage of which is described 

as belonging by purchase to Thomas Rotherham in right 

of his lay fee there. 

On February 8, 148^, Rotherham finally 

„ , . executed the deeds of foundation for the 
Ueeas 01 

Foundation College. The preamble runs: "We, Thomas 
of the College. . . • pondering and considering that in the 
town and parish of the church of Rotherham 
whence we derived our origin, and where also, in the 
neighbouring churches, towns, parishes, parts, and places 
scattered and separated far and wide, no small multitude 
of peoples flourishes . . . and that there is a great lack 
... of the needful preachers of the Word of God, and 
of instruction in virtue . . . and teaching in grammar 
and song." Edward's patent is then recited : and he 
establishes in accordance with its provisions a College 
to be named by the title of " The College of Jesus at 



140 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Rotherham." He proceeds to mention certain constitu- 
tions for the College, and names, as the first Provost, 
William Graybarn, S.T.P., and Edmund Carter as one 
of the Fellows. He next states that out of the goods 
which God has given him he has endowed the College 
with certain rents, fruits, and emoluments : but that as 
they are so slight and poor, he appropriates the church 
at Laxton, the collation and patronage of which belongs 
to him in right of his lay fee, to the College, as the 
benefice is rich enough (satis fertilis) to allow this. The 
necessary deeds of consent, with the indem-nities charged 
on the College (3/- to the Archbishop, 1/8 to the Dean 
and Chapter, 1/8 to the Archdeacon of York, and 2/- to 
the poor of Laxton), follow on precisely the same system 
as that which we have seen in the case of Twyford and 
Long Combe.* 



* The license of Edward in Latin may be found in Dugdale's 
" Monasticon," vol. iii., p. 1442 (edition by Sir Henry Ellis), as well 
as in Rotherham's Register at York. The preamble in the original of 
Rotherham's deed runs — " nos Thomas . . . p'pendent ... et con- 
siderant qd in villa et parochia ecclie p'clis de Rotherhm . . . ubi . . . 
traximus originem, ubi etiam et in ecclis villis et parochys nnon p'tibus 
et locis vicinis longe late . . . diffusis et distantibus non modica viget 
multifcudo p'plorum . . . et deest requisita . . . copia verbi Dei pdicator. 
et in virtute . . . iinon informator in grammatica et cantu." The 
advowson of Laxton was evidently appendant to the manor, v/hich is 
said to have been bought by Rotherham (perquisitam). Rotherham 
leaves this manor of Laxton, in the Will of 1498, to Ann, elder 
daughter of Richard Restwold, and Humphrey Roos, if they marry each 
other. The marriage took place (see Note N). Part at any rate of 
the manor and advowson had formerly belonged to Isabel, the grand- 
mother of Humphrey Roos. The whole manor and advowson had 
been left by Sir John Etton to his four granddaughters, of whom 
Isabel was one. (See Thoroton's " Antiquities of Notts.," vol. in,, 
p. 209.) Ann Restwold was not really a relation of Rotherham : but 
he was interested in her, because her father took -Rotherham's niece 
as his second wife. 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. 14! 

The endowment of the College thus secured, 

The 

the foundation stone was laid on the Feast 
Foundation 

Ston °^ ^*' Gregory (probably March 12, the 

of the College Festival of Gregory the Great).* It is not 
Laid. said that Rotherham was present : and when 

the juncture of affairs is considered it is 
scarcely probable. The last sickness of Edward must 
have set in, and Rotherham would be doing his 
Chaplain's office. Not for months probably had he a 
chance ol seeing the rising walls. The terrible process 
of events after Edward's death would keep him still at 
Westminster, until he left it for his imprisonment. Only 
after the Coronation of Richard, and his consequent 
release could he have visited Rotherham. It may be 
that at the time when Richard and his Queen were 
lodged in Rotherham's palace at York, Rotherham 
himself, now a fallen man, came back to his native 
place to watch the buildmg of his College. 

For a parchment roll of emblazoned pedi- 
grees at Wortley Hall records that he 
at Wortlev watched. As a testimony to the " worthy 
housekeeping " of Sir Thomas Wortley, it 
says that '* Bishop Rotheram, Archbishop of York, whyle 
he was building the College at Rotherham, did for the 
most part remain with him at Wortley." f To Sheffield 
people the wild combination of crag and upland heath 
and wooded hollow in the Chase at Wortley is a 
genuine relic of that wide forest in which we picture 
Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian, and scarcely 
less real to us Cedric and Gurth and Wamba. Over- 

* See Guest, p. 136, and Rotherham's Will below, Note N. The 
Festival of St. Gregory Nazianzen is on May 9, and of Gregory VII 
on May 28. 

f Guest, p. 100. 



142 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

looking the valley, one Sir Thomas Wortley built a 

lodge in the woods " for his plesor to her the harte 

bel," (according to an old inscription on the rock, no 

longer legible, which asked prayers for his soul).* 

The good historian of Rotherham, always glad of an 

opportunity for recalling the loveliness of nature round 

his home, before the murders wrought by the triple 

alliance of coal and iron and man, permits himself a 

rapturous description of the journeys of Rotherham, as 

with " gorgeous retinue " he rides from Wortley ** with 

its pomp of wood sweeping down the dark declivity " 

past " sweeps of glade " and undulating woodland to 

Rotherham's own cottage at Thorp and his manor at 

Barnes Hall in Ecclesfield : thence on through the 

verdant valley of the Blackburn to the Don ; then 

upward to the lofty eminence of Kimberworth Park, 

once the domain of Warwick, and then of Richard III., 

from which he looks across the green marsh and 

meadows of the river to the noble church and spire 

above the town.f 

A low, two-storied building, known as the 

The Buildings < College Inn,' formed one side of the quad- 
of the 
„ J, rangle of Rotherham's College. It is now 

covered with rough-cast, and has lost all 

but some very slight vestige of its original character : 

but even if we restore in thought the old doorways, 

hood-moulds, and mullions which it at first possessed, 

and then complete the quadrangle on the same pattern, 

we can hardly suppose that such a building would 

represent the "very fair College sumptuously builded of 

*"A Key to English Antiquities," by Mrs. E. C. Armitage, p. 7. 
Rotherham people delight to call their neighbourhood " Ivanhoe-land," 
on account of its association with Scott's great Novel. 

t Guest, p. 102. 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I43 

brike," which Leland records : the phrase is identical 
with that in which he describes Lord Wenlock's great 
house of Someries, and Rotherham's stately tower at 
Buckden. Guest's industry, as usual, helps us to a more 
adequate conception. The grounds of the College oc- 
cupied about two acres, extending across the present 
College Square to Bridge Gate, and in Guest's judgment 
(founded on the discovery of an underground passage to 
the river), to the bank of the Don. They were enclosed 
by a strong and large brick wall, marked like the 
tower at Buckden with the figure of the cross in 
different-coloured bricks at intervals, and twelve feet in 
height.* Besides the buildings of the College there were 
within this enclosure stables, a dovecote, orchard, and 
garden. Among the buildings we are able to distinguish 
in the first place a house in which the three scoles 
(for grammar, song, and writing) were held, in the second 
place •* a mansion " covered with gray-stone slates : and 
more important than these, a gate-house covered with 
lead, six yards in length, and four in breadth, with two 
"little turrets;" a chapel to the east of it with a 
crested lead roof, eighteen yards in length and five 
yards in breadth ; and on the west side of the gate-house 
a chamber with similar roof to the chapel, twelve yards 
in length, and five yards in breadth. The statutes of the 
College also shew us (what we naturally expect) the 
usual arrangement of common hall, kitchen, buttery, and 

* Guest, page 105. He gives from the "King's license" an extract 
describing the site as 638 feet 7 inches in length, and 623 feet 6 inches 
breadth, bounded by the waste land of the Abbot of Rufford on the 
east, a tenement of John Wentworth on the west, a close of the Abbot 
of Rufford called the ' imp-yard ' (nursery) on the north, and the course 
or stream of Rotherham falling into the Don on the south. This gives 
only an acre ; but another acre, the ' imp-yard,' was held by rent from 
the Abbot. 



144 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

chambers. The dimensions of the gate-house front, and 
the College Inn alike, point to a building on a smaller 
scale than those of that day at Cambridge ; but the 
plan, the arrangement, the turreted gateway stamped it 
as a College. Singular among the buildings of gray- 
stone or timber that surrounded it, it was built, like so 
much of Cambridge, of brick, and gave rise to the 
local proverb, " Red as Rotherham College."* (See also 
note J on " The Buildings of the College of Jesus.") 

From the com.pletion of the buildings the 

e an ry College was open to all stipendiary or 
Priests. , r ■, r , , 

chantry priests " oi good lame and honest 

conversation " in Rotherham. This matter lay very near 
Thomas's heart. He had seen " the chantry priests 
there boarding separately in laymen's places to their 
scandal and the ruin of others." As himself " a most 
unworthy priest" he desired "by a work of supereroga- 
tion to reform them": and hence decreed that they 
should have "chambers assigned to them," dine (though 
at their own costs and charges) with the Provost and 
Fellows in the common hall, have full attendance from 
the cook barber and servants, washing and fuel, use 
of the library, admission to all instruction from the 
Fellows in grammar, song, and writing, and in divinity 
from the Provost. In order that they might easily 



* In the grant of the site to the Earl of Shrewsbury, " Patent Roll 3, 
Edward VI.," the site is described as ' totum Scitum . . . , ac omnia 
domos .... Etabula, columbaria ortos pomeria gardina curtilagia . . . 
Guest, p. 160. The preservation of the description of the Gatehouse 
Chapel, &c., is due to the fact that these only were covered with lead 
The weight of the lead is given in each case : the roof of the gate- 
house " wainge one fowther " : that of the chapel " foure fowther " 
that of the chamber " three fowther." Guest, p. 159. These lead roofs 
no doubt caused their ruin. Like Roche Abbey and a hundred other 
precious things, they fell victims to the " plumbi sacra fames." 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I45 

support the cost of their living, the expense of commons 
was not to exceed ten or twelve pence a week except 
in the weeks of the chief festivals. They were not 
obliged to any spiritual duty within the walls : but that 
they might " avoid the evils that follow idleness " they 
were to be holily and devoutly occupied in the subjects 
taught in the College, and to study in the library. 
Their enjoyment of those privileges would depend on 
their good conduct. If any one of them behaved im- 
properly in deed or word, or molested or disturbed the 
Provost or Fellows, after tv/o warnings from the Provost, 
he was to be expelled for ever. No part of Rotherham's 
foundation was so original as this. The scandal from 
the want of a place to live in, residence in houses 
where "clerks and women dwell together," "too great 
frequency" in "houses greatly suspected," a life of 
idleness and poverty made the chantry priests through- 
out England as well as in Rotherham too often the 
black sheep of their profession. And yet to these men 
were entrusted those offices which, by no means out of 
a mere coward dread of purgatory, but often from deep 
sense of personal unworthiness, oftener still from tender 
solicitude for the living or dead beloved ones, the de- 
votion of the middle age so passionately desired and so 
munificently endowed. The grief of Rotherham at this 
loathsome discord, this horrible dishonour to God, lies at 
the root of his provision for the chantry priests.* 

* See the Will of Rotherham, in Guest, p. 137, and the " Statutes 
of Rotherham College," in Guest, pp. 107, iii, 112, and below, Note N. 
It requires an effort to see the finer side of a system so perfunctory 
and mechanical, so saturated with greed and barter as the network of 
Chantries seems to us. But such beautiful things as St. Augustine's 
offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice for his beloved Mother Monica 
Dante's " Purgatorio," or Cardinal Newman's " Dream of Gerontius," 
shew us the spiritual side of it. 



146 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

The license of the King left scope for the 

Extension of extension of the foundation in the event of 

further endowment. Such endowment came 

e eac er ^j.^^^ ^^^ sources. One John Fox gave 

of Writing. . , i ,, t-, , 

certain possessions to the College. By the 

ppropna 1 ^.^ ^^ these, supplemented by further gifts 

from Rotherham himself, the third fellow 

The Six ,,.,,, , • . 

Choristers ^^^ established, who was to be a priest 

(called the Chaplain of St. Katherine by 
the direction of Fox), and to teach writing and reckoning 
to youths endowed with light and shrewdness of nature, 
in order to fit them for mechanical arts and worldly 
callings. Probably he was also the priest of the Gild 
of St. Katherine's altar. The victory of Bosworth Field 
brought, as we have seen, a more important augmenta- 
tion. Rotherham prevailed with Henry VII. in the first 
flush of his new reign, to impropriate to the College the 
benefice of Almondbury, which belonged to him as part 
of the Duchy of Lancaster, as a token of gratitude for 
his victory (March 13, 148^).* This endowment was 
devoted principally to the only portion of the founda- 
tion, as yet unnoticed : six poor boys, " of the fitter and 
apter at learning and virtue," particularly of Rotherham's 
family, and from the parishes of Rotherham and Eccles- 
field, were to be maintained in the College at the 
discretion of the Provost, and taught singing, grammar, 
and writing up to the age of eighteen, unless they 
should be "found mature in knowledge and learning 
sooner." The Provost was strictly charged to watch 
over their " manners, virtue, and learning." They were 

* The deeds, drawn on the same lines as those for Laxton, are in 
the York Register. The indemnity to the Archbishop was 6/8 : to the 
Archdeacon 1/8: to the Dean and Chapter 3/4: the sum allotted to 
the poor of Almondbury was 2/-. 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I47 

to serve the Provost and Fellows at the masses, attend 
on them and the chantry priests " at table and in the 
reading of the Bible " (probably at the meals). The 
duties in the Chapel of Jesus and that of Our Lady on 
the Bridge have been already noticed. They were also 
to attend along with the Provost and Fellows in the 
Parish Church on Festival Days at mass and other 
services. The complete foundation had, it will be seen, 
ten members : and in the fashion of the middle age, 
Rotherham likes to trace a symbolism in the number. 
"I have incorporated," he says, "in my College one 
Provost, three Fellows, and six boys, that where I have 
oflfended God in His ten commandments, these ten should 
pray for me."* 

The foundation thus completed, he drew up 
The Statutes, with the utmost care a body of Statutes, 

which shew throughout the practised hand 
of the Chancellor of England and the Chancellor of 
Cambridge.! The appointment of the Provost is vested 

* Guest, pp. 112, 114, 137. The Will of Rotherham seems to shew 
that the endowment of the College was a strain on his resources. He 
was unable to do more " because he lacked money," 

t It is in the clauses for the defence of the property, the prevention 
of waste by either Provost or Fellows, the provision for the decrease 
of revenue, that the lawyer's hand is visible. His dread of stultification 
of his statutes through Papal dispensation from their observance is 
marked by the provision that the Provost shall enter into a bond for 
;^ioo, to be forfeited if he attempts to procure one. The disciplinary 
power of the Provost is very stringent. He can use in regard to the 
Fellows not only expostulation, but withdrawal of a stipend, corporal 
punishment, expulsion. Ill-conduct in the Provost is guarded against 
by subjecting him to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York, who 
can remove him by " summary process : " the Fellows can appeal to 
the Archbishop : the warning to the Provost is extremely stern. The 
moral clause is very suggestive of the dangers in such communities, 
and full of Rotherham's characteristic phrases. The Provost and Fellows 
" must not use games rightly prohibited to the clergy," nor frequent 



148 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

after Rotherham's death in the University of Cambridge. 

The offices and masses of intercession, the duties, the 

social life are minutely regulated. A stringent code of 

discipline enacted. The dangers from Papal dispensation, 

plurality, non-residence, internal corruption, alienation 

and waste of property are strongly safe-guarded. It was 

not till the close of his life that he thought of the 

further danger of litigation : and for the defence of the 

College at law then left a special sum of two hundred 

pounds. Of confiscation, the real danger before it, he 

never dreamed. 

These statutes, like those of Lincoln, give 

The Interior ^^ ^ picture of the life and work in the 

_ „ - College. We can imagine the Provost, the 

College of ^ ^ 

Jesus. three Fellows, and the chantry priests dining 

together in the hall at one table, the 

choristers waiting on them or reading some passage of 

the Scriptures. The fare was more frugal than at Lincoln, 

so as to be no burden on the purses of the poor 

chantry priests. Better off, however, than the Fellows 

at King's, each Fellow had a room to himself and a 

fire, perhaps of coal. The special services in church have 

been already mentioned : on every festival the Provost 

and Fellows in their surplices would be seen in the 

stalls on the north side of the choir, which still remain. 

taverns, or suspected houses, or disgraceful shows, " because it is be- 
coming that the ministers of the altar of The Immaculate Lamb, in 
order that they may be able to offer The Immaculate Host for the 
living and the dead, should keep themselves pure and chaste and un- 
touched and unspotted from all fleshly allurements" : they must " en- 
deavour to shun the weakness of the flesh and its uncleanness and 
dishonour : nor presume to approach suspected women .... and that 
they permit no women of any condition or state whatever to pass the 
night or remain within the College, without a great reason, approved 
by the Provost." See the translation of " The Statutes," in Guest, 
pp. 106-119. 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM. I49 

Twice in the week they said masses in the Chapel of 
Jesus : the other masses and offices were held in their 
own chapel : at every mass special prayers were said 
for the living (" Rule thy servant Thomas . . . our 
founder ") and for the dead named in the King's license 
(" God, whose property it is to pity . . . pardon the 
the souls of . . . "). Annually on April 9 (the day 
of Edward IV. 's death), a solemn anniversary was 
held with exequies, and on the morrow mass of requiem 
for King Edward and the rest, and for Rotherham after 
his death : and poor and decrepit people were served 
with food and drink at a table set for them in the 
hall, and presented with a gratuity at their departure. 
The whole of the appointments for the chapel, the 
vestments, altar-cloths, plate were very sumptuous and 
costly. From St. Nicholas' Day (Dec. 6) to the Holy 
Innocents* Day the singular ceremonies of the Boy-bishop 
were held, as they had been at King's and Beverley. 
One of the choristers was elected by them as the Boy- 
bishop. He wore episcopal vestments and mitre, preached 
a sermon, and sang the service : the choristers during 
this period occupied the higher stalls, the Provost and 
Fellows the lower ones. The ordinary routine of the 
College was the teaching of grammar, music, and reckon- 
ing in the three separate schools : to these not only the 
choristers but boys from the town and district came 
freely : the chantry priests, too, were aided in any studies 
of theology, music, or grammar, which they desired. To 
them also the library was open : and this library was 
one of Rotherham's munificent presents. The catalogue 
of the books is preserved in the Archives of Sidney 
Sussex.* It contains more than a hundred volumes — 

* In the volume of Archives at Sidney Sussex, five chantry priests 
are mentioned. The charge for weekly commoners was a shilling, 



150 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Classics : Cicero, Terence, Ovid, Sallust, Tibullus, Pliny ; 
Patristic Divinity: Augustine, Gregory the Great, Ambrose; 
Mediaeval Divinity : Hugo de St. Victor, Aquinas, Rabanus, 
Bonaventure, Bernard, De Lyra; Legends of the Saints, 
Sermons, and Treatises. An interesting feature in the 
Catalogue, pointed out by Mr. Jenkinson, Librarian of 
the University of Cambridge, is that some of the books 
(unlike, I suppose, the bulk of the two hundred volumes 
presented by Rotherham to the University Library) are 
not the older and commoner manuscripts, but the 
strange, new-fangled printed books from Germany and 
Holland. 

The College was a noble monument of 
Conclusion. Rotherham's love for his birth-place. Its 

revenues at the time of its dissolution were 
calculated at £"127 7s. 6d. ; the plate in the College was 
estimated at the enormous sum of £i\1 os. 4d. ; and 
the furniture at £$\ 7s. 8d. If it had remained to the 
town, its revenues, according to the common calculation 
of the relative value of money now, would have been 
;^i,5oo a year : but in this land of mineral wealth 
infinitely more. Hunter is well within the mark in his 
judgment about it. " The establishment of the College 
forms quite an era in the history of Rotherham. It must 
have changed and improved the character of the place, 
and if the superstitious rage against superstition had not 
in less than half-a-century(?) swept away this foundation, 
it would have continued to be ... a minor University." 

against sixteen-pence at Lincoln College. It seems to have been felt 
rather a spare allowance, for William Rawson left in his Will a sum 
of five shillings for extras on Saturday. Guest, p. 123. 

* Manuscripts in the Library of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge : 
edited by Montagu James Rhodes, pp. viii. 4, 5, 6. Notes K L M 
will be found below on " The Plate, Vestments, and Service Books," 
" Notable Inmates," " The College and the Grammar School." 



CHAPTER XI.] THE RED COLLEGE OF ROTHERHAM, I5I 

But by the Chantry Act of Edward VI. all was con- 
fiscated, except the salary of the Grammar Master. The 
main property passed to the family of the Swifts : the 
building to the Earl of Shrewsbury. And on what plea ? 
That of the masses for the dead. For this, the work 
of the Provost in teaching of divinity and preaching in 
the affiliated parishes, the secular education carried on 
by the masters of writing and music, and the main- 
tenance of the choristers were all swept away. An 
application of the same principles of confiscation would 
have abolished every mediaeval College in Cambridge, 
and King's College as the chief. It is a flagrant 
example of the greed and robbery which disgraced the 
Reformation time. 



CHAPTER XII. 
THE LAST WILL OF ROTHERHAM. 

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, 
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. 
Let's choose executors and talk of Wills. 

King Richard II., Act III., Scene II. 

— Shakspeare. 

The last Will of Botherham — The Will of 1475 — Invoca- 
tion and Prayer to the Saints — The Marble Tomb in the 
Minster at York — Provisions for his Family— Gifts to York 
— Gifts to his old Dioceses and Benefices — Gifts to his 
Household — Defence Fund for the College of Jesus — Dread of 
Purgatory — Solemn Profession of Faith — Death of Botherham 
— His Position and Character. 



TN 1498 Rotherham made his last Will, 
The Last Will 1 ^j^-^j^ ^-jj ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ j^^^^^j^ ^^ ^j^^ 

end of the volume : a complete translation 
of it is also given by Guest (p. 137). Canon Raine, in 
his reprint of it in " Testamenta Eboracensia" (Vol. 2), 
has described it as the most splendid example of the 
Will of a mediaeval bishop in existence. From its ample 
store of biographical allusion we have frequently drawn : 
we have anticipated its leading provisions : and the note 
on the plate and vestments in the College of Jesus 
illustrates the rich antiquarian interest which its long 
list of ecclesiastical ornaments and dress, books of ritual, 
and mediaeval plate (all closely described for the purpose 
of identification) affords. There remains, however, an 
aspect of the Will, which is here directly in place — its 
detailed and pathetic portraiture of the humility, abase- 



CHAPTER XII.] THE LAST WILL OF ROTHERHAM. 153 

ment, fears, tender thoughtfulness in provision, which filled 
the old man's heart, as he looked back upon his long 
life, and felt his labours ending, and death nearing upon 
him. 

He had made, as he tells us, many Wills. 
The Will of rj.^^ drafts of some of them evidently lie 
1475. 

before him, as he writes. But new circum- 
stances have arisen — notably those connected with the 
College of Jesus — and he is not certain whether his estate 
ultimately will be able to satisfy all the desires which 
he had previously expressed. One, probably the earliest 
of these Wills, made at the age of 52 (1^75), has been 
preserved to us. It is shorter, more formal, less ex- 
pressive of wide affection than this. Certain pieces of 
property in it (Mortymere, Kempston, Grauenhurst, 
Netherstonden, Kympton, and Walden) may have been 
sold subsequently, as they no longer appear in 1498. 
On the other hand, all the large Yorkshire property has 
been acquired. And both his brother John and his 
mother are now dead. (Guest, p. 135). 

He begins to write the Will with his own 

nYoca ion jj^nd (propria manu) on August 6, and 
and Prayer \f f j & » 

t th Saints fi^^ishes it on his birthday, the Feast of 
St. Bartholomew, August 23. After invoking 
the name of God, he commends his soul to his Creator 
and Redeemer, and begs for the prayers of the Most 
Glorious Virgin Mother, Michael, Gabriel, and all Angels, 
Peter, Paul, John, and all the Apostles, Stephen, Vincent, 
and all the Martyrs, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose, 
Nicholas, William (of York, doubtless), John, Wilfred, 
and all Confessors, Magdalene, Katherine, Margaret, and 
all Virgins, and the most glorious citizens of the court 
of heaven. They are to implore the infinite mercy of 
God, and pray for his sins, for which he is grieved and 
K 



154 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

sorrowful. ** O, if I were sufficiently penitent," he exclaims, 

" that my Lord Jesus may have pity on me, and deign 

to turn away His face from my many sins." 

He then writes the directions for his burial. 

The Marble geing certainly assured that as the blessed 

,,, , Tob said, His Redeemer liveth, and that in 

Minster ■• ' 

at York. ^^^ flesh He shall see God, and hence that 
his soul shall again be clothed in flesh for 
evermore : and further, that not for the sake of his own 
merits, but through the virtue of the Passion of Jesus 
Christ and by the Prayers of His Saints, he will have 
the better part in the Resurrection ; he directs that his 
flesh, his putrid body, shall be buried on the North side 
of the Chapel of Saint Mary in his Church of York, 
where he has constructed a tomb of marble.* 

After this he gives the long bequests to the College 
of Jesus, which have been already mentioned. 

His thoughts turn next to his own family. 
ProYisionfor -^^ ^^^^g ^^^^ ^^ the church at Luton, 

where, as he says, his mother and brother 
are buried, and where he has established the succession 
of his race, a set of grey bawdekin vestments (the ash- 
colour used in Lent) embroidered with pheasants, for 
the priest, deacon, and subdeacon, and a gilt cup with 
two cruets. The gifts to Thomas (the estates annexed 
to Someries) and George, his nephews, and to the 
Ecclesfield Scotts (p. 2) follow. t 

* The tomb still remains, but is not a very striking one. It is 
curious that it has no heraldry on the shields. It was however much 
defaced in the fire of 1829, and restored at the expense of Lincoln 
College, Oxford. See below, Note N. 

f Here and throughout the Will the descriptions of pieces of plate 
bequeathed are very interesting to students of old plate The troy 
weight is given: the make (Paris towch, London towch, Bruges towch, 
&c.), the figures (flowers, columbines, lions, &c.), and the nature of the 
pieces (bowls or cups [tacete], pots [oUse] phials, &c.), are specified. 



CHAPTER XII.] THE LAST WILL OF ROTHERHAM. I55 

From the provision for his family his mind 
The Gifts to passes to York. He has already given to 

the Minster a splendid mitre worth five 
hundred marks. He adds a gilt statue of St. Margaret 
standing on a dragon, with a cross in one hand, and a 
book in the other, and a crown on her head. And to 
the Vicars' Choral a hundred pounds, out of which they 
are to buy lands or appropriate churches, with a stipu- 
lation that those who sing the Antiphon of St. John 
shall say immediately after it a De Profundis for his 
soul. 

The claims of the numerous preferments of 
Gifts to his the p^st are next considered. To all the 

old benefices (except Beverley, St. Vedast, 
Benefices. Foster Lane, and Salisbury), to Rochester 

and Lincoln, St. Katherine's and St. Mary's 
at Cambridge, gifts of varying value are allotted. 
(King's College had received one hundred pounds in his 
lifetime. Pembroke may have enjoyed some sufficient 
benefaction). A general direction is added (which for 
reasons that will appear directly, he commends with great 
earnestness to his executors,) regarding all the places in 
which arrangements have been already made for the 
performance of perpetual exequies for his soul. Each 
place is to have certain sums of money, at the discretion 
of the executors, calculated according to their separate 
needs and the benefactions they have already received : 
and if it shall appear that the exaction of perpetual 
exequies is too burdensome for the places, they are to 
be commuted for the celebration of a number of masses, 
to be said as speedily as possible after Rotherham's 
death, for the salvation of his soul. 



156 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

The affectionate provision for his domestics 
The Gifts succeeds. Richard Birley, his most trusted 
Household servant, beyond the sum of eighty pounds 
already paid for his purchase of marriage 
from Sir John Everyngham and other moneys before and 
after it, is to have the lands and tenements, which he 
has bought in Cawood and Gaitford. Every servant is 
still to have his wages continued to him for six months 
after the master's decease. Every one of them is also 
to have a horse worth twenty shillings or the value of 
a horse, the gentlemen, valets, grooms of the chambers 
having choice of one out of his own stables. And all 
that desire it are to have free board in his house for a 
year so that they may have time to provide themselves 
with new masters. " God grant to them," he adds, 
" Good ones. Amen. Amen. Amen,"* 

Is there anything he has forgotten ? Yes, 
The Defence once more he thinks of the dear College of 

^ „ „ Tesus,'and provides under the special trust 
College of J ^ ^ 

Jesus. ^^ Trotter (the Treasurer of York) and 

Henry Carnebull, the fund of two hundred 

pounds for any lawsuit about the College. 

Here, if the Will were a modern one, the 

^h® directions would have ended. But there is 

Trembling ^ horror that lies heavily on his soul, the 

orPu^gatMr t^^"^^l^"g ^^^^^ °^ purgatory. Whether it 

arose from the sense of utter unworthiness, 

which is seen in the saintliest of men, or whether from 

the memory of distinct passages of the bloody past, in 

* This had been one of the provisions in an earlier Will, when he 
felt more able to fulfil it. He is a little doubtful if it can be fully 
carried out now. If not, the executors are to modify it at their 
discretion. 



CHAPTER XII.] THE LAST WILL OF ROTHERHAM. 157 

which he had been false to his Lord, we do not know 
and have no right to judge. But the fact of his terror 
is shudderingly set forth to us. The prayers of the 
living must be oflfered for him, as well as the prayers 
of the Saints. The Holy Sacrifice must be offered for 
his soul innumerable times. Well, was not this already 
provided for ? The gratitude of Cambridge, the gratitude 
of Lincoln Oxford, had decreed him perpetual masses : 
the clause about other places, in which the like, or 
numerous masses as soon as possible after his decease 
are ordered, has been already described. Can more be 
needed ? Yes ! from his very heart he desires and prays 
his executors, by the hope he places in them, and as 
they will answer to Christ, that they use the utmost 
diligence, that a thousand masses be said for him at 
once, as speedily as it is possible after his decease, in 
order that by so many Sacrifices and Memorials of the 
Passion of Christ there may be gentler dealing with 
his soul. " I know," he writes, " that my sins seek 
and demand great and long punishment, yea, infinite 
punishment, because they have been perpetrated and 
committed against the infinite God. And yet with the 
blessed Augustine, I believe firmly that my sins cannot 
terrify me, if the Death of my Lord has come into my 
mind : for in the wounds of His Body I desire to hide 
myself, and in the Sacraments flowing from them I 
would wash them away through the grace of Our Blessed 
Lord Jesus. May He grant it, who for me was willing 
to suffer so shameful death, so many stripes ! " Nor is 
even this provision adequate. For in the succeeding 
clause^ in which he names as executors Blythe, the Dean 
of York; Trotter, the Treasurer; CarnebuU, the Arch- 
deacon ; Skelton, Treasurer of Lincoln ; Carter (one of 
the Fellows of the College of Jesus), Chaplain of St. 



158 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Mary's, York ; and Richard Burleton, his servant, with 
Bishop Alcock, of Ely, as supervisor, he directs that 
any residue of his estate is to be devoted to the pro- 
motion of the salvation of his soul.* 

There is nothing more to be added now in 

„ , . the matter of provision. But he consecrates 

Profession . . , • , , ■ -, ^ ■ 

of Fa'th ^ ^^ solemn writmg, which has occupied him 

so many days, by a profession of his faith. 
*• I bear witness that in the Passion of Christ and in 
the Sacraments of the Church which draw their virtue 
therefrom I place the hope of the salvation of my soul; 
and that in no Article of the Faith do I doubt, or have 
have ever doubted ; and that if by chance (which God 
avert), through the disease of infirmity or any cause in 
the last wrestle, I pronounce otherwise, from this moment 
as for that, for that moment as now, I disown the 
words, renouncing and abhorring now and ever every- 
thing that is repugnant to the Spouse of Christ, His 
Holy Church, for as a true Christian I would die, I 
yearn to die, I pray and I pray again that I may so 
die. Amen. Amen, Amen." 



As we read this Will we seem no longer 

® ®^ ° to be hunting a shadow through the crowds: 
Rotherham, , ,-r ^■■i r r ^^ • • 

M 29 1500 liielike figure 01 a Christian old man, 

humble and sorrowful, grateful and affec- 
tionate, pious, penitent, and devout, is shown to us. 
But only for a moment : and then we fall back on the 
meagre entries of the Register. It gives no more London 

* It was out of this residuary estate probably that Trotter and 
CarnebuU subsequently erected a chantry for Rotherham at the Altar 
of B.V. Mary in the Cathedral at York, giving the patronage of it to 
the Provost and Fellows of the College of Jesus. See Guest, p. 132, 
quoting from Browne's " History of York," p. 266. 



CHAPTER XII.] THE LAST WILL OF ROTHERHAM. I59 

visits. Scroby and Cawood become the favourite resi- 
dences. He is not to see the dawn of the sixteenth 
century. All the earlier part of the year 1500 he is at 
Cawood, There, on May 29, death finds him, if tradition 
be true, by the swift, terrible, unconjectured ministry 
of the plague. But if so, how was it possible to 
convey, as they did convey, what in a sense more 
real than he guessed, had become his " putrid 
body " (putridum corpus) for honored burial beneath 
the marble tomb at York ? In the year 1736 the 
vault beneath the tomb was examined, and the 
skeleton was discovered, nothing else being found except 
that singular wooden head (which had then a stick 
through the neck), now shown to visitors in the Vestry 
of the Minster. The tomb was examined again in 1844: 
the bones still being fairly perfect, laid with the feet 
towards the east. It was evident from the broken state 
of the wooden coffin, and the rent throughout the length 
of the leaden coffin, that the vault had been rifled.* 



How shall we define the position and 

arac er character of the dead man? His feet touch 

and Position . - , , , 

of Rotherham "^^^^ ^^^ ^ sealed enclosure of the 

Middle Age. Dying before the dawn of the 

sixteenth century, no breath of its marvellous surprise 

* See Guest, pp. 129-130, quoting for the first examination of the 
vault, Drake's Eboracum Ed., 1736, p. 447 ; and for the second one 
" The History of the MetropoHtical Church of St. Peter, York," by 
John Browne, 1847, PP- 264, 265. Guest says that " a similar head 
was seen by the Rev. J. Eastwood, at Southwell," who " was told by 
Rev. Canon Dymock, that it was the head of a figure of Archbishop 
Rotherham, over whose effigies funeral obsequies were performed." 
This wooden figure at Southwell, however, appears to be no longer in 
existence. Canon Trebeck informed me that he had never heard of it. 



l6o ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

blows across his face. When, at his last attendance on 
a State pageant, he looked on the child-face of the 
newly-created Duke of York, it would give no hint of 
the ungovernable sensuous King, who was to despoil the 
church, break with the Holy Father, and divert the 
religious current of English history. The revival of 
Greek learning at Florence must have been known to 
him, as Edward IV. had money transactions with Lorenzo 
de Medici : it would be of real literary interest to so 
learned a man as Rotherham. His friend Sellynge also, 
as teacher of Grocyn and Linacre, was the father of 
Greek learning in England.* But Greek was as yet no 
part of the connotation of grammar, the root of the 
sciences: not till the lectures of Erasmus (1510) was it 
to invade Cambridge, although in the last years of 
Rotherham's life, Colet and Erasmus and Thomas More, 
as friends in Oxford, had talked of Greek together. Of 
the power which the Greek literature was soon to 
exercise on art, and architecture, and letters, quickening 
imagination, refining form, giving birth to Biblical 
criticism, sapping for a while by its frank humanism 
the mediaeval faith — Rotherham couid not have dreamed. 
Born far too late to have been touched, as Fleming was 
in youth, by the fiery denunciation of Wicliffe, Lollardry 
had been always to Rotherham " that pestiferous sect, 
which assails the sacraments, institutions, and possessions 
of the Church." It seemed a spent force now : its 
writings had been burnt or discredited : the Church had 
crushed it and was unchanged. Of that Evangelical, 
spiritual awakening which was soon to thrill the souls 
of men, not a sound was heard as yet : Luther, a lad 
of seventeen, had not entered an University, or opened 



* See Gasquet's " Eve of the Reformation," pp. 27-30. 



CHAPTER XII.] THE LAST WILL OF ROTHERHAM. l6l 

a volume of Theology; Latimer was a child of ten, 
playing on his father's farm. There were printed books 
in the library of the College of Jesus : as the sixteenth 
century advanced, all the resources of ecclesiastical 
censure and royal licenses were to be exerted in vain 
against the religious power of the press ; and later still, 
the printed English Bible, as a new spiritual discovery, 
was to be placed openly in the churches, rousing the 
reverent wonder and moving the very heart of the 
nation : but the immensity of this revolution was beyond 
Rotherham's conjecture. Like his friend Alcock of Ely, 
and Cardinal Morton, one of his successors in the 
Chancellorship (both of them his colleagues in the 
hazards of the time, both dying within four months 
after his decease), he seems to belong utterly to the 
past. As we review the outline of his life, what is it 
which is most attractive? Not his work as an ecclesiastic 
or a statesman, but his beneficence to education. Just 
as at King's, or at Winchester or Christ Church, we 
forget the weaknesses of Henry, the doubtful passages 
in the statesmanship of Wykeham or the arrogance of 
Wolsey, so the suspicions which have crossed us, in 
contemplating the office of the Chancellor or the Keeper 
of the Privy Seal, and the dark end of Clarence, fade 
among the memories of Oxford and Cambridge, and his 
native place. Only the malice of accident has destroyed 
for us the library with its beautiful gateway in his own 
University, and prevented his College of Jesus from 
emulating the fame of Lawrence Sheriff's Rugby. Judging 
him not with the Pharisaic hardness of our untempted 
time, but with just allowance for the moral possibilities 
and the terror of his brutal age, we have no stones to 
throw at him. Possibly, because we know too little. 



l62 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

For in the case of Rotherham, the complaint of Antony 

over the body of Caesar — 

The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones — 

is absolutely reversed. Every positive fact that is pre- 
sented to us speaks of a man humble, simple, true, full 
of tender considerateness and large benevolence to men, 
deep and penitent devotion to God. 



NOTE A. — ROTHERHAM FAMILY IN LUTON. 163 

NOTE A. 
ON THE ROTHERHAM FAMILY IN LUTON. 

By his Will in 1475, Archbishop Rotherham left to his brother 
John the manor of Someries and other manors in Bedfordshire, 
Bucks, and Hertfordshire. It seems clear that this brother had 
already been put in practical possession of these estates or some of 
them, living in the very fine house which had been built by Lord 
Wenlock at Someries.* (See below. Note F., an examination into 
the relationship of Lord Wenlock with the Rotherhams). He never, 
however, became the real owner, as he died in 1492 before the 
Archbishop. Accordingly in his Will of 1498, the Archbishop leaves 
the manors of Someries, Luton, Aspley, and several others (the list 
slightly varied from the one in 1475) to John's eldest son Thomas ; 
from whom descends the family of the Rotherhams of Someries, 
which terminated with Elizabeth, who married Sir Francis Crawley, 
Knight, Justice of the Common Pleas in 1637. John the brother of 
the Archbishop had also a second son George, to whom he left 
another manor in Luton called Farley. The descent from him, 
asserted by Sir Richard St. George under the pedigree of Scott, has 
been already mentioned. In that of Sir Henry St. George, however, 
George is merely said to have had a natural son, named after 
himself. From this natural son descends the family of the Rother- 
hams of Farley, which terminated in two daughters in the middle 
of the 17th century. 

In the church of Luton there are two Altar-Tombs in a chapel, 
supposed to be tombs of the Rotherhams. One is asserted to have 
been that of Sir Thomas the nephew of the Archbishop. Guest 
gives the Latin inscription on the tomb of a George Rotherham of 
Farley, who died in 1592. He mentions also a Sir Thomas Rother- 
ham, whom Sir W. Brereton names in his diary (1635) as a Privy 
Counsellor in Dublin. Another Sir Thomas built the west side of 
the Chapel Quadrangle at Lincoln College, Oxford (see Note E.). 
A John Rotherham was made Fellow of Lincoln in 1648. He became 
afterwards a barrister at Grays Inn. He rose to be a Baron of the 

* Leland describes it as sumptuously begun by Lord Wenlock, but 
not finished. " The Gate House of Brike is very large and fine. It 
was a strong place fortified with a wall and ditch." Gough calls 
the mansion " one of the most beautiful specimens in brick of the 
Florid Gothic, that I remember." (Guest, p. 167.) 



164 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Exchequer under the title of Baron Rotherham. (See the authorities 
quoted in Guest, pp. 166, 167.) A Thomas Rotherham, son of 
Christopher Rotherham, and grandson of Sir John Rotherham, the 
last Knight of Someries (not the last Knight in the family) was 
Librarian, as Dr. Sinker has itindly informed me, at Trinity, Cam- 
bridge. He had been educated at St. Paul's School (1652-62), 
entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, March 24, 1653 : graduated 
B.A. in 165^: M.A. in 1660. He was elected supernumerary Chaplain 
(April g, 1661) : Librarian (February 17, i68|), resigning the Chap- 
laincy. He was again elected Chaplain (Jan, 14, iSqI) : died (Nov. 8, 
1702) : and was buried in the ante-chapel at Trinity. 



THE ARMS OF THE ROTHERHAMS. 165 

THE ARMS OF THE ROTHERHAMS. 

In all the delineations of the arms which I have been able to 
find, they appear as ' Vert, three bucks trippant : ' but with three 
variations. 

1. In the oldest of the documents, the first page of ' The 
Statutes of the College of Jesus,' which must have been written 
shortly after the Archbishop's death, the three bucks are either 
'proper' or 'argent.' They are given ' argent ' in Harleian MS. 6163, 
a voluminous collection of arms in colours executed probably at 
various dates between the reigns of Henry VI. and Henry VIII. 
(folio 64) ; and again in additional MS., British Museum, 5848 
(Cole's Collections), p. 203. See ' Notes and Queries,' 5th Series, 
May 5, 1877. 

2. In the Visitation of Bedfordshire, 1566, by William Harvey 
Clarenceux, King-at-Arms, the bucks are designated as ' or.' And so 
also in the Visitation of Yorkshire by Robert Glover, Somerset 
Herald, 1584 and 1585, together with the Visitation of Richard St. 
George Norroy, King-at-Arms, 1612. The pedigree here is continued 
to 1612, so that the evidence may be of that date. 

3. In the east window of the Church of St. Martin, Stamford 
Baron, are the ancient arms of the See of York impaled with 
' Vert three stags trippant, argent, attired or.' This church is 
reported to have been built by Bishop Russell, the successor of 
Rotherham in the See of Lincoln. Russell died, before Rotherham, 
in 1496. (Notes and Queries, 5th Series, June 16, 1877.) This 
variation is also found in Hatcher's Catalogue at King's College, 
which apparently assumed its present form in 1620. And in ad- 
ditional MS., British Museum, quoted above, it occurs on p. 205, 
only two pages later than the designation ' three bucks argent.' 

The third variation is perhaps best attested, and it is this coat 
which appears on the tomb of Sir Richard Scott, of Barnes Hall, in 
Ecclesfield Church (1628). There seems every probabihty that the 
Scotts had the same coat of arms as the Archbishop. But it cannot 
be assumed that they had coat armour in Rotherham's time. Mr. 
Alfred Scott Gatty, York Herald, found at York a Will of Richard 
Scott, of Barnes Hall, dated July 15, 1556, in which the testator calls 
himself ' yeoman.' (' Notes and Queries,' 5th Series, vol. viii., p. 30.) 



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NOTE C. — wood's claim OF ROTHERHAM AS AN OXONIAN. 169 

NOTE C. 

ON ANTHONY WOOD'S CLAIM OF ROTHERHAM AS 

AN OXONIAN. 

The grounds of Wood's claim are, that, when Rotherham was 
granted his degree of D.D. at Oxford, after having taken it at 
Cambridge, he had to preach three sermons, and to pay Twenty 
Pounds on the day of his inception, whereas Strangers were treated in 
a very different manner, and not subjected to such hard conditions ; 
further also, that in a volume of letters from the University of Oxford 
there was one to a Bishop of Lincoln, who according to time must 
have been Rotherham; and that it was not the custom of the 
University to address letters of this congratulatory order to any but 
those who had been their former members. Wood's choler had been 
excited by a phrase of Richard Croke, the Public Orator of Cam- 
bridge, who after mentioning certain instances of migration had called 
Oxford " a Colony of Cambridge "; and he deals with Rotherham in 
the course of his vindication.* 



* Pro comperto .... est nuUam consimilis argumenti epistolam 
reperiri in Codicibus nostras quae ad Antistitem data fuerit, qui 
academiae hujus alumnus aliquando non fuerat .... Thomas 
Rotherham, qui Collegii Lincolnensis alter Fundatorum fuit (id quod 
plus quam probabile facit altricem Agnovisse Oxoniam) non alia 
nobiscum .... conditione donatus est (Theologize Doctoratu) quam 
ut concionem prius examinatoriam, ac deinde alias binas haberet : in 
die etiam Inceptionis libras viginti, vice epularum, numeraret : cum 
peregrines tamen et ab Athenis nostris mere alienos louge aliter 
tractare soleamus, quos legibus tam duris hand quaqum interpositis 
eodem apud nos loco esse jubemus quo apud suos versantur. (Wood's 
" History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford," lib. i, p. 243). 
Wood also claims him in " Athenae Oxonienses," and adds, " In an 
old book of Epistles, written by the University of Oxford to great 
personages, is an epistle written to the Bishop of Lincoln : and he 
that then sat there must according to time be the said Rotheram." 
In which epistle are certain circumstances that show that he had 
sometime studied in the said University, and besides, the members 
thereof did seldom or never write epistles to any except such who 
had originally been students among them." (Wood's " Athenae Oxon- 
ienses Ed.," 1813, Vol. II., p. 683.) I am indebted for the discovery of 
the letter in the University Archives (F. p. 254) to Mr. Ellis, the 
Latin Professor, and Mr. E. C. Sherwood, of Magdalene Coll., Oxford. 
L 



170 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Cole in his MS. " Life of Rotherham," takes up the cudgels 
against Wood's audacity. The argument from the fees and examina- 
tion demanded before the grant of the Doctor's degree he does not 
deal with, but in regard to the letter he writes: "As to these cir- 
cumstances in the epistle, showing him to be of any other University 
but Cambridge, it would have been satisfactory to have produced 
them ; till which time we shall beg leave to claim him wholly as 
our own ; and as to that University writing to him when Bishop of 
Lincoln, I can see no impropriety, even though they wrote epistles 
to their own members, why that or any other University should not 
write complimentary epistles to their own diocesan ; Oxford then 
standing in the diocese of Lincoln. Mr. Baker, in a note of this 
place from Mr. Wood, seems to think it probable that he might have 
been of that University, in the same manner as some of Cardinal 
Wolsey's first scholars were fetched from Cambridge to his first 
foundation at Christ Church : yet I think Mr. Baker did not know 
the age, nor the circumstances .... or he would not so readily have 
assented to such larceny." 

It runs : — 

" Quinto decimo die decembris sigillata erat litera domino episcopo 
Lincolnensi sub forma quae sequitur. 

" Cum egregios homines clarosque reverendissime pater peramplis 
potiri honoribus contuemur non parum nobis iocunditatis (sic) afferri 
solet tum vero nil maxime non iniuria si quando eorum quempiam in 
apice positum uidemus, quos nostra quidem Universitas peperit fovit, 
educavit. Quod in te ante ceteros iocumdissime conspicimus. Nam ex 
olim filio mira dei prouidentia gratissimus nobis pater efficeris. Non 
modo te patrem verum eciam et gratissimum patrem fateri non 
ambigimus. Quantum tibi hac nostra ut aiunt etate ferrea Studii 
iactura dolori fuerit ab his qui te hoc damnum sepe plangentem 
conspexere satis accepimus maxime vero quod grammatica quam 
reliquarum scientiarum radicem esse constat tanquam in exilio posita 
regno e nostro abierit deflere solebas. Huic tam gravi periculo 
remedium saepe et multum uti nuper didicimus ferre tecum ipse 
cogitasti : merito quippe iocundari debemus quod ea quidem res quae 
principibus habetur neglectu a tanti patris corde non abscesserit : hoc 
utique tam pium tam sanctumque propositum quod a deo seminatum 
certissimi sumus eo quidem iuvante amplissimos parire fundus indubie 
expectamus : siquid igitur tibi optime pater quod certe parum existi- 
mus (sic) prodessfc arbitreris paratissimos homines id demum quod in 
nostra eistit (sic) potestate poUicemur deum nos pro tua paternitate 
perpetuo exoraturos." — Vale, 



NOTE C. — WOOD S CLAIM OF ROTHERHAM AS AN OXONIAN. I7I 

If Cole had seen the letter in its place in the Volume at Oxford, he 
could have taken up a stronger position. It is dated on December 15, 
without mention of the year, and addressed to the Lord Bishop of 
Lincoln, without mention of the name of the Prelate. It expresses 
the joy with which the University beholds raised to very high dignity 
one whom she had brought forth, reared, and educated (peperit fovit 
educavit). From being a son he has now been raised to be their 
father — a most welcome father. They have heard from others how 
deeply he bewails the perils in this iron age of the loss of all 
learning : and especially of his lamentation that grammar, the root of 
all the sciences, has gone into exile from the realm. They rejoice 
to know that this, which is neglected by princes, has not been 
banished from his heart. If in any way, according to their slender 
power, they can aid him in the revival, they will be his most ready 
servants. The exceedingly strong terms in which the education of 
this Bishop from first to last is here claimed for Oxford could hardly 
be used for Rotherham : but they might be for his predecessor, 
Chedworth. The allusions to the Bishop's love of learning and 
grammar would again be quite in place applied to Chedworth, who 
had been Provost at King's. The place of the letter in the Volume 
also seems to determine it to this prelate, lying as it does between 
a letter in 1466 and another dated January 26, i46|. The other 
argument of Wood based on the large fees charged to Rotherham 
for his D.D. degree, is less easy to deal with, as the date of the 
grant of this degree is unknown now. But the date of bis " incor- 
poration " at Oxford — a term which implies that he was previously a 
stranger — is given in the Oxford Registers as Nov. 19, 1463. See 
" The Register of the University of Oxford," by Rev. C. W. Boase. 



172 NOTE D. — DEGREES AT CAMBRIDGE AND OXFORD. 

NOTE D. 

ON ROTHERHAM'S DEGREES AT CAMBRIDGE AND 

OXFORD. 

I have been unable to discover the date at v^hich Rotherham 
took his D.D. degree. Cooper, in " Athenae Cantabrigienses," places 
it in 1460. This is, however, certainly a mistake. He was probably 
misled by the entry in "Grace Book A." (recently published in the 
" Luard Memorial Series," edited by Stanley M. Leathes), which runs 
thus : " Item concessa est gracia magistro Thome Rotherham Vt. 
cum forma habita possit incipere in theologia et non artetur ad 
vlterius expectandum post inceptionem." This gives him permission 
to incept (i.e., take his degree of D.D.). And it appears by a sub- 
sequent entry that he paid the necessary deposit called a " caution " 
for doing so. But he did not then take this degree. In the entry 
in Chedworth's Register of Rotherham's collation, Oct. g, 1465, to 
the Prebend of Brinkhall, it is described as given " Magistro Thome 
Rotheram sacre theologie Baccallario." Meanwhile, he had been in- 
corporated into Oxford : and the entry in the " Register of the 
University of Oxford," edited by Rev. C. W. Boase, at first sight seems 
to speak of him as in possession of the D.D. degree — "Rotheram 
Thomas inceptor for D.D. at Cambridge sup. for incorporation June 7, 
1463, Nov. 19." But inceptor does not, as Mr. Hastings Rashdal 
kindly pointed out to me, necessarily imply possession of the degree. 
The petition, June 7, was /o»* incorporation, and it was granted 
Nov. 19. Quite in harmony with the entry in Chedworth's Register, 
we have in the Cambridge " Grace Book A." in the accounts 1467-8 — 
" In primis de magistro Roberto Woodlarke praeposito Collegii pro 
cautione Magistri Thome Roderham quia non incepit in Theologia 
iijli vis viii*i." He had not taken his degree, and consequently the 
" caution," which may have been a piece of plate or some article of 
value, was sold for the profit of the University. In the previous 
year also the " Bourchier Register " had given him the title S.T.B. 
on his collation to St. Vedast's. It seems probable that he may 
never have taken his D.D. until he became Bishop of Rochester. 
The delay, and the forfeiture of the "caution," on the part of a man 
who was certainly well off, are very singular. 



NOTE E. — ON LINCOLN COLLEGE. 173 

NOTE E. 
ON LINCOLN COLLEGE. 

The Statutes of Lincoln College were published in the original 
Latin for the University Commission in 1853. Mr. Clark in his work on 
Lincoln among " The Colleges of Oxford," has also given a full and 
minute analysis of their bearing and import. They give a very clear 
picture of the College, as Rotherham ordered it, developing the existing 
constitution handed^'down from Fleming. The most striking variation 
from our modern ideas is, perhaps, the entire absence of the under- 
graduate element. The creation of the scholarships in the present sense 
of the term only began in post- Reformation times. Certain persons 
named " Commensales " or "Sojornantes" are mentioned in Rotherham's 
Statutes, who lived in College under some unknown arrangement, 
and were admitted to the disputations and subject to discipline. 
No provision whatever however is made for their tuition : Mr. Clark 
considers them to have been graduates, attracted to the College " by 
its quiet and social life." They did not belong in any way to the 
foundation. The College consisted of a Rector and twelve Fellows, 
all of whom were to be of the degree of Master of Arts, or at the 
lowest Bachelor of Arts. They were to be elected exclusively from 
the dioceses of Lincoln, York, and Wells. In the sentences which 
ordain this, we recognize Rotherham's characteristic phrases. " Re- 
cognizing, not without amazement of mind, the notable benefits which 
Oxford derived from the diocese of Lincoln, and yet that very seldom 
any one from the diocese was elected to any Fellowship there : re- 
collecting also that his mother in the flesh brought him into the 
light of this world in the diocese of York, and yet that men of that 
diocese were beyond the rest excluded from the Colleges of Oxford : 
understanding further that a good part of the College, in regard to 
its buildings, was graciously provided out of the property of Bekynton 
a Bishop, and Forrest a Dean, of Wells : not blinded by hateful 
affection of the flesh, but, still desirous provide a remedy for the 
blindness of others " ; he ordains that one of the Fellows shall be 
elected from the diocese of Wells, eight from the diocese of Lincoln 
and by preference the Archdeaconry of Lincoln (if fit men can be 
found), and four from the diocese of York, with preference of the 
Archdeaconry of York, and;: special preference of the parish of 
Rotherham, of similar fitness. The Rector of the College was to be 
a real, though constitutional ruler. " A State without a King, a 



174 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

people without a prince, a community without a head," says 
Rotherham, " are, in a moral point of view, monstrosities." Two 
chapters in the year constituted the parliament of the College. The 
actual administration of discipline lay under the Rector, in the Sub- 
Rector or "Corrector." "The emblem of the office," says Mr. 
Clark, "is eloquent as to his original duty of correcting faults by 
corporal punishment. This scourge of four tails, made of plaited 
cords, still extant and perfect, is solemnly laid down by the Sub- 
Rector at the conclusion of his term of office, and restored to him 
next day on his re-election." The maintenance which the College 
provided was somewhat lean. With the exception of the Rector, 
whose emoluments were good, and the Sub-Rector, who had a salary 
of nineteen shillings and fourpence a year, none of the Fellows 
received any money payment ; they were precluded from holding any 
prebend or benefice of greater value than forty shillings with their 
fellowship, and any benefice with cure of souls outside the 
University. In Oxford, however, they might hold a benefice, not 
exceeding ten marks, and might receive stipends for saying masses 
for the dead. And by dispensations of the Rector and Fellows, they 
might hold private property or some sinecure to the value of one 
hundred shillings with a Fellowship. They had free commons at the 
Hall table: but the sum allowed was studiously moderate. "Great 
daintiness at the table of the clergy, and especially of students we 
consider unseemly," says Rotherham. " We bid our scholars keep 
moderate diet." A richer allowance, varying with the greatness of 
the Feast, was allowed on certain Festivals of the church. They had 
the rooms rent free. And there were several occasional payments for 
"obits" similar to that for Rotherham. The Statutes name certain 
servants who were attached to the College — the manciple (who was 
the purveyor for the housekeeping), the cook, the barber (needed for 
the tonsure among other matters), and the laundress. The Rector 
had a special servant, called the Bible Clerk (bibliotesta), because one 
of his duties was to read the Bible, or some commentary or 
theological work at meals. The Rector and Fellows had certain 
duties in regard to the parishes from which they drew their revenues. 
The regular services there were performed by chaplains, removable by 
the College; but they were assisted by the Rector or Fellows. Thus 
during Lent the Rector was at Twyford, one of the Fellows for a 
fortnight at Long Combe, and two others continually at All Saints 
and St, Michael's. The duties consisted in celebrating the sacra- 



NOTE E. — ON LINCOLN COLLEGE. 175 

ments, hearing confessions, and other ministrations. On all greater 
Festivals the Rector and all the Fellows attended at All Saints in 
either amice or surplice and hood. Sermons in English were preached 
at All Saints at Easter, All Saints Day, and the Feast of the 
Dedication of the Church ; and on Michaelmas Day at St. Michael's. 
" We hold it much suitable (say the Statutes) that scholars of 
theology should practise themselves in turn and occasionally in 
catholic and evangelical preaching, which is called practical theology. 
It spreads the fame of theologians in the world: it increases their 
merits towards God. From this comes suppression of vices and 
increase of virtues, and the salvation of souls. We will that our 
scholars, not omitting the care and study of scholastic exercise (quod 
absit) be by this means fed by a delicate variety of pleasant 
changes." In addition to this aid to the parishes there was of course 
the maintenance of the masses and offices in the College Chapel. 
The prayers for the dead were also a marked part of the prescribed 
round. Not only such offices as we saw promised by the Rector 
and Fellows for Rotherham's soul were used for other benefactors ; 
but twice a week at the close of the disputations " De Profundis " 
was said for the souls of Founders, benefactors, and all the faithful. 
The essential work for which the College was founded remains to be 
mentioned. It was a College of theologians : neglect of reading was 
one of the faults to which the Sub-Rector's discipline was applied. 
There were not only the chained books in the library, but others which 
were lent out among the Fellows, for study. All members of the 
College were to frequent the theological schools of the University 
for the greater part of the term : and disputations, one on points of 
theology, the other, for the Bachelor of Arts, on philosophy or 
logic, were to be held every week in the College, commensales 
and men outside being permitted to be present. The law against 
one guilty of heresy, and especially (though no longer the power 
it had been in Fleming's day) Lollards, was relentlessly stern. 
'• If it has come to the knowledge of the Rector and the majority 
of the Fellows, by the testimony of two worthy persons, and not 
enemies of the man, that any one of the Fellows has maliciously 
and contumaciously favoured in private or public communication any 
heretical opinion, and especially that pestiferous and new sect, which 
assails all the sacraments, degrees and institutions (status) and pos- 
sessions of the church : by that fact, without further question, let 
him be cast out from the sheepfold of our College, as a tainted 
sheep, unless within six days after monition he submit himself to the 
Rector, by humbly undergoing punishment," 



176 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE F. 

ON LORD WENLOCK AND THE ROTHERHAMS 
OF SOMERIES. 

According to Leland, there was a connection between the Lord 
Wenlock who fell at Tewkesbury and the family of Rotherham. His 
words are : " Lord Wennelok left an Heire General that was married 
to a Kinnesman of Thomas Scotte otherwise called Rotherham Bishop 
of York. He had by her yn Mariage Luton in Bedfordshire and 
3 hunderith Markes of Landes thereabouts, and a faire place within 
the Paroche of Luton calleyd Somerys, the which house was sump- 
tuously begun by the Lord Wennelok, but not finished. The 
Gatehouse of Brike is very large and fine." It would seem that 
Lord Wenlock was in possession of Somerys at the time of his 
death. The manor at Luton consequently could not come to the 
"heir general" (heiress) who married Rotherham's kinsman until after 
Lord Wenlock's death. It is not easy to make out who this heiress 
was. Dugdale in the " Extinct Baronage " says that Lord Wenlock, 
so far as he could see, left no wife or issue : but that his estates 
went to a cousin, Thomas Lawley. Gough (" Topographia Britannica," 
vol. IV., p. 45. — Luton), quoting from Vincent's " Visitation Salop," 
says that Thomas Lawley was given the manor of Luiton Mortimer 
by the Will of Lord Wenlock, made in October, 1477, and proved 
in December the same year. (This must be a mistake, as Lord 
Wenlock died in 1^71.) John Rotherham, the brother of the Arch- 
bishop, married a widow Alice, who had estates in her own right 
from her former husband. In his Will, July 29, 1492, he is described 
as Dominus Villse de Luton. He leaves to Alice his manor of 
Houghton Conquest and all the lands purchased with his own money 
in Luton, with remainder to his son Thomas : also to his son George 
the Manor of Farley in Luton. (There were also lands and tene- 
ments in Kent left to these two sons — some in Canterbury, among 
these being the Bull Inn.) Someries itself and the Manor of Luton 
are not expressly named. 

But the assertion that Luton and Someries came in this way to the 
Rotherhams seems almost impossible to reconcile with the directions 
in the two Wills of Archbishop Rotherham. In his first Will, dated 
May 12, 1475, he devises, among a number of manors, Someries, 
Houghton Conquest, a moiety of the manor of Luton, and the 



NOTE F. — ON LINCOLN COLLEGE. I77 

reversion of the other moiety to his brother John, with remainder to 
John's son, Thomas, And in his last Will, dated Aug. 6, 1498, after 
the death of his brother John, he devises his manor of Someries, 
manor and lordship of Luton, manor of Hoghton and several other 
manors and estates to his nephew Thomas, with remainder in default 
of heirs, to George the younger brother. Evidently Someries and 
Luton and (strangely) Houghton Conquest all belonged to the Arch- 
bishop. 

This is also clear from Letters Patent, 1477 (Close Roll, 17 
Edward IV.) of John Lawley, uncle of Thomas Lawley, in which he 
quit claims the manors and lands mentioned in Rotherham's Will 
of 1475 (Somerys, Lutonmortymere Kempston, Houghton Conquest, 
Overstonden, Fenels Grove in the Hundred of Flytt, Beds. : Barton, 
Yon, Grauenhirst, Netherstonden, Stopisley, Luton, Beds : Kympton 
and Walden, Herts.) to the same persons (the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Archbishop Laurence of York, Lord Hastings, William Skelton, 
Treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral, and two others) who are named in 
Rotherham's Will of 1475, as holding these pieces of property for 
his use. 

It seems more probable that the lands connected with Luton 
and Someries were acquired by the Archbishop himself (either by 
purchase from Lawley, or by grant from Edward IV. of Wenlock's 
estates forfeited by treason) than by the marriage of John Rotherham. 



M 



178 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE G. 

ON THE DELIVERY OF THE DUKE OF YORK 
OUT OF SANCTUARY. 

It is not easy to shew the grounds on which Rotherham is to 
be exonerated from complicity with the plan to get the Duke of 
York out of Sanctuary, without rather a long explanation. The most 
vivid of the primary accounts of the reign of Edward VI. is that 
commonly known as Sir Thomas More's. It was first printed in 
Grafton's " Continuation of Hardyng's Chronicles " (1543). In this 
edition of it, a sentence regarding the death of Edward IV. occurs, 
which seems to point to this portion of it at any rate, as being 
from the pen, not of Sir Thomas More, but some one who was an 
eye-witness of Edward's last sickness : and Sir John Hannington, 
writing in 1596, ascribes it to Morton rather than Sir Thomas More* 
The narrative in this account is frequently, and especially in the part 
that concerns us, conducted by the method of elaborate speeches by 
the principal actors ; and these may be simply the Herodotean invention 
of the author, rather than real records of conversation. The account 
of the delivery of the little prince out of Sanctuary falls into two 
divisions : (i) The council at which Richard proposed that the Queen 
should be appealed to for the delivery of the boy. (2) The actual 
interview with the Queen in Sanctuary, at which she consented to 
surrender him. At the latter Rotherham is not named as being present. 
The interview was conducted by Bourchier, who was accompanied by 
several lords. Whether any of these lords were spiritual lords is not 
expressly stated : there had certainly been spiritual lords at the 
council, of which this was the outcome : and some of them had 
protested against the decision at which the council had arrived — that 
the little prince should be taken out by force, if the Queen refused 
her consent. It is possible therefore that Rotherham may have been 
present (supposing this account to be the one ultimately accepted as 
evidence). If he was, the spirit and wit and passion of the Queen 

* Sir Henry Ellis' preface to his edition of Grafton, p. 20. 
The sentence regarding Edward's death-bed runs, " His last sickness 
.... which continued longer than false and fantastical tales have 
untruly and falsely surmised, as I myself that wrote this pamphlet 

truly know." 



NOTE G. — DELIVERY OF DUKE OF YORK OUT OF SANCTUARY. 179 

in her argument with Bourchier, and her tears, as she resigned her 
boy, would be intensely affecting to him. But the probability of his 
being among those who interviewed the Queen will rest on the 
evidence for his previous presence among the lords spiritual at the 
Council : and this evidence, as derived from Sir Thomas Mora's 
history, is conflicting. The general outline of the proceedings was 
this: Gloucester represented in the strongest terms " the invincible 
impediment to the execution of his office" as Protector, in the fact 
that the Queen and her children were in Sanctuary ; the longing of 
the young King for his brother's company ; the difficulty of proceeding 
with any heart or earnestness about the coronation, if the King's 
brother was absent. It was his opinion that some trusty person, 
who could not be doubted to tender the King's wealth, and was in 
credit with the Queen, should be sent to her. No person was better 
qualified for the office than the Lord Cardinal (Bourchier). The 
Cardinal would doubtless go no further in treating with her than to 
persuade her : but his own opinion was, that, if she proved obstinate, 
they should " fetch the Duke of York out " by " force." A debate 
followed, turning much on rightful uses and abuses of Sanctuary, and 
issuing as we have seen in Bourchier's mission. One point only in it 
concerns Rotherham, the immediate reply made by an ecclesiastic to 
Gloucester's opening speech, which was to this effect : 

" That as he consented to the Motion, that the Duke of York 
should be brought to the King's presence by persuasions, and would 
himself do his best to effect it .... yet he could not by any means 
consent to that Proposition, That if the Queen refused to deliver him 
up, he should be taken out of Sanctuary by force; because it would 
be a thing not only ungrateful to the whole nation, but highly dis- 
pleasing to Almighty God, to have the privilege of Sanctuary broken 
in that Church, which being at first consecrated by St. Peter, who 
came down above 500 years ago in person accompanied by many 
Angels at night to do it, had since been adorned with the Privilege 
of a Sanctuary by many Popes and Kings ; and therefore .... no 
Prince has ever been so fierce and indevout as to violate the 
privilege of it ; and God forbid that any man whatsoever .... shall 
attempt to infringe the immunities of that most Holy Place. However, 
he hoped they should not be driven to such extremities .... he would 
so perform his part, that they should be convinced that there wanted 
no good will or endeavour in himself." 

The whole tone of this speech is natural and consistent in the 



l8o ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

mouth of Bourchier, but quite unnatural in the mouth of Rotherham : 
and in almost all the editions of Sir Thomas More's history, and the 
chronicles of Hall Grafton and Polydore Vergil is attributed to the 
Cardinal. In the 1556 edition of More's Works, however, and in 
Stowe and Holinshed it is given to Rotherham. Hooke, in " The 
Lives of the Archbishops," and Lord Campbell take Holinshed's view : 
but it is much more natural to take the opposite one: and if so, all 
evidence (from Sir Thomas More) of Rotherham's presence at the 
Council disappears.* 

But the evidence of the other primary witness for this reign, 
the Croyland Historian, has also to be considered. It is merely 
negative evidence, as he does not mention Rotherham, and is 
short and matter of fact : the value of it lies in the dates it 
gives us, which are accepted as establishing the real sequence of 
events by Lingard, Macintosh, and Sharon Turner. In opposition to 
Sir Thomas More and all the chronicles (Hall, Grafton, Fabyan, 
Polydore Vergil, Holinshed, Stowe) who found themselves on him, 
the Croyland historian places the mission of Bourchier to the Queen, 
not before, but after the black Council of June 13th, giving the 
exact day — " the Monday following " (die Lunje sequenti). If this was 
really the date, all question of Rotherham's presence at the council, 
on that Monday is at an end. He was in prison.f 

* Holinshed's account somewhat varies from the one given here, 
copied from Kennet's complete History of England. He says that 
the prelate affirmed that St. Peter's Cope was still to be seen in 
the Abbey. The versions of Sir Thomas More vary considerably. 
The original work was in Latin. (See Guest, p. 162, note.) 

t Sharon Turner lays very great stress on the importance of this 
date, and says that Sir Thomas More, by placing the mission to the 
Queen before the death of Hastings, aggravates untruly the facts 
against Richard (History, Vol. 6, p. 420, note.) But the case for 
Richard is really not much affected, whether we take the one order 
or the other. 



NOTE H. — PETITION FROM UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. l8l 

NOTE H. 

PETITION FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
TO THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. 

{Quoted from Cole by Guest, p- 92.) 

Right high and mighty Prince, in whom synglerly resteth the 
polityke Governance, Pease and Tranquillite of ye Realme of 
Ynglande, your humble oratours commende them to your good grace; 
and for Alsmyche as we have felt in Tymes passed your bountiful 
and gracious Charite to us your daley Bedemen, not alonly in sending 
be your true Servant and Chancesler, Master Thomas Barroghe, to 
his moder ye Universite, a grat fathful Lover, your large and 
haboundante Almons, but as wele fowndynge certyn Prestys and 
Fellowes, to ye grete worship of God and to ye Encresse of Christes 
Fath in ye Quenys Collegge of Cambrigge. We upon that coumfourth 
make our writyng to your Grace for such Thynges concerning ye 
wele of ye Universite Besekyng your noble Grace to shewe your 
gracious and mercyfull goodness at this our humble supplication, to 
the right reverent Fader in God ye Archebisshop of York, our Heed 
and Chauncesler and many yers hath been a grete Benefactour to the 
Universite and all the Colleges therein ; and thrught ye Help of God 
and your gracious Favour shall longe continue. Most Christian and 
victorious Prince, we beseche youe to hear our humble Prayours ; 
for we must nedes mowrne and sorowe, desolate of comfurth, unto 
we beer and understande your benynge Spyrite of Pile to hymwarde; 
which is a grete Prelate in the Realme of Ynglonde ; and we to be 
ever your true and humble oratours and Bedemen, praying to him 
that is called the Prince of Mercy for your noble and royall Estate, 
that it may longe prosper, to the worship of God, who ever have 
youe in his Blessed Kepyng. 

Your true and daley oratours, 

the Universite of Cambrigge. 

To the right high and mighty 
Prince, Due of Gloucestre, 
Protecteur of the Realme of 
Englonde. 



l82 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE I. 

ON THE CHANTRY LICENSE FOR THE ALTAR OF 

JESUS. 

The terms of this license suggest certain conjectures. 

I. It is clear that both the parents of Rotherham were by this 
time dead. His mother, however, as a widow apparently, had been 
living with her son John at Someries in 1475- The Altar was 
already finished, July 28, 1480, when Rotherham was not yet fully in 
possession of the See of York. We have observed above (p. 9) that 
in his Will of 1475 there is no mention of any Yorkshire property : 
but there are several pieces of property near Rotherham (apart from 
those marked as purchases) in the Will of 1498. Further, in the 
Will of John Rotherham there is no Yorkshire property. What if the 
thing which turned the attention of Thomas to his old home was 
the accession to property there on the decease of his mother ? He 
was as we have seen (p. 10), probably the eldest son. 

2. If this were so, his principal gift to the re-building of the 
church might possibly have been given in the years immediately before 
1480. It is notable that at no time in his life was his wealth so 
great as then. The revenues of Lincoln were not very much smaller 
than those of York. To these were added the emoluments of the 
Chancellorship, and the pension of twenty thousand crowns from 
Lewis : and on our hypothesis, the Yorkshire estates. His translation 
to York made him for the moment poorer, owing to the enormous 
sum which he would have to pay for first fruits and his pallium. 
Then the pension from Lewis ceased : and lastly, after Edward's 
death he was dismissed from the post of Chancellor. 

3. If the site of Altar of Jesus could be ascertained, it might 
prove a clue to the problem of the reconstruction of the church. As 
it is said to have been in the Chapel of Jesus (otherwise called the 
Chapel of St. Katherine), it must have been separated from the rest 
of the church either structurally or by screen-work : and it is natural 
to enquire whether either of the chapels in the chancel is the Chapel 
of Jesus. The North chapel is asserted in a paper by the Rev. and 
Hon. William Howard to have been dedicated to St. Anne: but I 
have been unable to trace his authority for the statement, nor can 
I find in Guest's large extracts from old documents or from the 



NOTE I. CHANTRY LICENSE FOR THE COLLEGE OF JESUS. 183 

Chantry Certificates that there was an Altar of St. Anne. In the 
corbels of the roof, however, have been remarked heads of a King, 
a bishop, and a lady : very likely adornments for the chapel as 
designed in the license. The South chapel has yet a stronger claim, 
and, if the subjects of the bosses were all deciphered, might have a 
still stronger one. The roof is very rich : it was originally decorated 
in blue and gold. The moulded beam has pannelled sides, " that 
against the East wall has the wounded heart, hands, and feet of our 
Saviour." The centre boss has a sun in glory, the badge of 
Edward IV. (Guest, pp. 321-323). This chapel is generally considered 
the Lady Chapel : and a monogram " A.M." (Ahna Mater) has been 
deciphered, which is consistent with this attribution : but surely the 
other emblems point more forcibly still to this as the Chapel of 
Jesus and of the masses for the soul of Edward. The Chapel of 
Our Lady was however certainly in the choir (or its aisles), not the 
body of the church. In one or two places in the Chantry Certifi- 
cates it seems to be very closely connected with that of Jesus. Is 
the account to be given of these chapels and the chancel arcades 
this ? — That the chancel arcades, with their polygonal piers and 
battlemented capitals were so built in connection with older chapels 
of the Decorated time, before the great reconstruction of the nave 
was projected : and that closely subsequent to that splendid achieve- 
ment these chapels were rebuilt. The Western arch in each chapel 
is uniform with the arch of the aisle on the other side of the 
transept. The pitched roof of the earlier Southern chapel is plainly 
marked on the transept wall. It may have been that of the Gild 
of St. Katherine. 



184 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE J. 

THE BUILDINGS OF THE COLLEGE OF JESUS. 

I have only taken from Guest's account the details which un- 
doubtedly belong to Rotherham's College. He has several other 
interesting pieces regarding the after-history of it. He remembered 
in his own boyhood the strong brick walls of the enclosure inlaid 
with a cross : a small part of them was still visible in i860. The 
side of the quadrangle parallel with the College Inn was also then 
standing, part of it used as attorneys' offices, part as the preaching- 
room in connection with the Masbrough Independent Chapel. At the 
further end of the quadrangle from the street there was a lofty 
and large doorway, in the centre of the high blank wall, which 
joined these ranges of building : and some outbuildings behind this 
wall. The front along the street was a thick heavy wall, the coping- 
stones of which measured from three to four feet across, surmounted 
by a strong iron palisading, with an entrance gateway composed of 
two square lofty pillars, some sixteen feet high, with bold moulded 
caps, surmounted by large balls. The reminiscences of an octogen- 
arian of his own day carry him still further back to the time when 
the quadrangle was the residence of the Hamers, whose carriage and 
four used often to issue from this gateway. The space of the 
quadrangle was then laid out in parterre and shrubbery. This occu- 
pation of the College as an eighteenth-century house is, I think, the 
key to the erection of the gateway and its balls, and also of those 
Italian doorways on the north side of the quadrangle, of which 
Guest gives an engraving. (Guest, pp. 105, 106.) Both of these must 
be subsequent to Rotherham's age. It would be natural to suppose 
that the chapel and turreted gateway and long chambers, described 
on the grant to the Earl of Shrewsbury, occupied the front along 
Jesus Gate. A very different picture of the quadrangle is given us 
in a quotation of Cole from a MS. entitled " The Fall of the 
Religious Houses, Colleges, Chantreys, Hospitals, &c.," written, by 
one who had been a pupil at the School in the College, in 1591. 
The place was then almost derelict, the chimneys falling, the ownership 
disputed. " I learned at the College .... founded by the founder 
of the said College .... which is a fair house, still standing : but 
God knoweth how long it shall stand; for certain brick chimneys, 
and other brick walls .... is decayed and fallen down for lack of 



NOTE J. — THE BUILDINGS OF THE COLLEGE OF JESUS. .185 

use ; for there hath been few persons, and sometimes none at all, 
of long time dwelling therein ; because it is in the Earl of Shrews- 
bury's hands ; and as the report is, it is concealed land ; which 
seemeth to be the cause that he maketh no account thereof .... 
all the lands .... are sold from it by the King, saving the yard, 

orchard, and garden places lying within the walls The 

Foundation .... was not to make a malt-house, as it is now used." 
(Guest, p. 96.) I think this description makes Mr. Leader's conjecture 
(in his dehghtful book on the " Captivities of Mary Queen of Scots,") 
that Mary slept in the College in 1568 doubtful, though of course it 
was in better repair then. The " report " that it was " concealed 
land " may have arisen from the fact, that when the grant was made 
to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the school-house was expressly reserved 
by the crown, probably for the purposes of the grammar-master. 
Half the site, previously the property of Rufford, came to the Earl 
with the other lands of the Abbey : the rest may still have been 
partly in the crown in 159 1. 



l86 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 



NOTE K. 



THE PLATE, VESTMENTS, AND SERVICE BOOKS OF 
THE COLLEGE OF JESUS. 

The '■ Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts at Sidney Sussex 
College, Cambridge," contains a full account of an original volume 
of the Archives of the College of Jesus in the Library there. The 
book is still in its original red leather folding cover, and has the 
Arms of the Archbishop with his motto, and those of the See of 
York with his motto (see above, p. 132). The initial on the first page 
of the text, surmounted also by his motto, has a full-length figure of 
Kotherham on a gold ground in blue chasuble, dalmatic, and alb, with 
pall, mitre, and cross. 

The principal contents of the volume are the statutes (in Latin), 
and an Inventory of the books, plate, and vestments given to the 
College by Rotherham, and by Henry Carnebull. This Inventory was 
not written until after Rotherham's death, as it mentions the articles 
as " acquisita post mortem ejus." The first list of plate is (with the 
addition of a great silver-gilt cross, a large vessel for holy water, two 
silver candlesticks, thuribles, a vessel (navis seu carchesa) for incense, 
and a silver-gilt goblet with cover bought out of the College funds) 
identical with the articles given below in Rotherham's Will. There is 
a second list, containing articles of considerable value, at the end of 
the volume, the gift of Henry Carnebull. The immense value of the 
plate in the Chantry Certificate Return is quite accounted for by this 
Inventory. (See above, p. 150). 

Among the less-known items, the pax bread, a piece of silver 
or silver-gilt metal, with a figure of Christ crucified on it, which was 
passed among the congregation to be kissed as a kiss of peace, may 
be mentioned. There was one at Doncaster in 1548, which the clerk 
took round, saying, " This is a token of joyful peace betwixt God 
and man's conscience. Christ alone is the Peace-maker." (Hook's 
" Church Dictionary.") " Pelvis " is a basin for the hands ; Pyx, the 
box for the reserved Sacrament ; Cochlearia, spoons ; Tacea, a cup ; 
(compare the list in Rotherham's Will below. Note N., and the trans- 
lation in Guest, p. 138.) The list of vestments, altar-cloths, and 
super-altars only contains one item not in Rotherham's Will. They 
are very gorgeous. Four complete sets of vestments for priest, deacon, 
and sub-deacon ; one of cloth of gold, one red velvet bordered with 



NOTE K. — PLATE, S-c • OF THE COLLEGE OF JESUS. 1 87 

gold, and green orfreys, one red velvet powdered with gold, and the 
figure of an angel on the orfrey, one of red bawdekin or purple 
velvet (sic) : a blue silk (blodium, a hyacinthine blue — Blunt. An. P.B. 
vestment worked with flowers : a red one with lions : another gold 
with velvet worked with pearl and bearing an image of St. Katharine : 
a white one of damask, &c. The one item not mentioned in 
Rotherham's Will is a vestment of black velvet bordered with gold. 
The predominance of red in both vestments and altar cloths is 
marked. In the Will a cope is mentioned of cloth of gold on a green 
ground. The "super-altars" are not what is often designated by that 
name now, but portable slabs for use in consecrating the host. Very 
curious is the mitre for the barne bishop, of cloth of gold, with 
" two knops of silver gilt and enamyled." The list of service books 
in the Will is fuller than that in the Inventory. The Breviary 
sumptuously illuminated, Missal, gradual, and antiphonary are all of 
the York Use. There is, however, also an illuminated Missal of 
great price, according to the use of Sarum. This Inventory is printed 
in full in the Descriptive Catalogue, but not given in Guest. I have 
not felt able to reproduce the statutes in the original, as they are of 
considerable length. For almost every purpose, however, the complete 
translation in Guest will be sufficient. There is another copy of the 
statutes in the Coton MSS., a good deal burnt. (Vit. E. 10, 
pp. 226-234.) 



l88 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE L. 

NOTABLE INMATES OF THE COLLEGE OF JESUS. 

As the College of Jesus only existed about sixty-four years, it 
is strange that it should have had seven or eight Provosts. Their 
names have been discovered by Canon Raine and Alderman Guest 
(pp. 120-123). The first Provost was William Greybern, D.D., at that 
time Rector of Sherington, Bucks. He did not resign Sherington 
apparently on his appointment, as he is said to have exchanged it 
{i486) for Handsworth. The statutes did not forbid the tenure of a 
benefice along with the Provostship, though it forbade a number of 
preferments, if requiring continual residence. Rectories especially were 
then held by non-residents. The impropriation system had lowered 
the whole standard of obligation regarding them. He was collated 
to a Stall in St. Sepulchre's, York, in 1490. His bequests to 
Rotherham, particularly the one for exhibitions at the College and 
University, are interesting. He was buried in the Chapel of Jesus 
(1501). The Will of Wilham Rawson, dated June 22, 1495, styles 
him Provost of the College. He was buried also in the Chapel of 
Jesus. His bequest of extras (extrancis in prandio .... septima die) 
for the meal on Saturdays has been already mentioned (p. 150). He 
leaves some books to the College. Richard Hoton, B.D., and Robert 
Cutler, B.D. (1509) are unimportant. Robert Nevile, B.D. (1518), was 
Rector of Grove, Notts, (inst. 1506). After his resignation of the 
Provostship we find him Vicar of Almondbury (appointed no doubt 
by the College), Rector of Ordsall, and Prebendary of Bilton, York. 
He may perhaps have resigned the Provostship in 1530, if he is the 
man then appointed to the benefice of Staunton in the diocese of 
Salisbury, having been made Prebendary of Gaia Minor, Lichfield, in 
1528. Robert Pursglove, the last Provost, was a man of some con- 
sequence. Born at Tideswell, educated at St. Paul's School, London, 
and Corpus, Oxford, he became Prior of Gisburne, where he is said to 
have "lived in the most sumptuous style, served only by gentlemen." 
He received a pension of ;£2oo a year on his voluntary surrender of 
the Priory. After the suppression of it he became Bishop of Hull, 
under the suffragan Act of Henry VHL, and appears under this title 
in the Chantry Certificates for the College of Jesus. No doubt he 
had a pension assigned him at the dissolution of the College. He 
held his office of Suffragan under Mary, and was also Archdeacon of 



NOTE L. — NOTABLE INMATES OF COLLEGE OF JESUS. 189 

Nottingham : but refusing to take the oath to Elizabeth, retired to his 
birthplace, where he died in 1579. Guest engraves the beautiful leger 
slab in the church at Tideswell, representing him in full episcopal 
vestments, with mitre and pastoral staff. Another inmate of the 
College, though not a member, should be named, Henry Carnebull, 
Archdeacon of York. He was evidently a loving and trusted friend 
of Rotherham. He was one of the executors of his private estate, 
and also of the special fund for the defence of the College. To the 
latter office he was marked out by his love of the foundation, which 
is shewn by his splendid gifts of plate and books for the altar. A 
letter written by Rotherham in his last days from Cawood (Sept. 20, 
1499), grants to him the right to the prayers of the College during 
life, and an annual mass after death. He became also an inmate of 
the College. He made his Will, while lying sick there (July 12, 1512), 
and no doubt died there, after further gifts of plate on the day before 
his death (August 10, 1512). He was buried before the altar in the 
Chapel of Jesus. The inscription on the stone asked for prayers for 
Rotherham as well as for himself. And he founded a Chantry for 
the sons of Henry VH. and his Queen, and for Rotherham, as well 
as himself, in the Chapel of Jesus. He may have contributed also 
to the completion of the Clerestory in the chancel (see above, p. 135).* 

* For the incidents concerning Carnebull, see "The Manuscripts 
at Sidney Sussex," pp. 3-5, as well as Guest, pp. 76, 133, 144, 32*. 



igO ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE M. 

THE COLLEGE OF JESUS AND THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 

The nucleus of the revenues of the present Grammar School was 
the salary of the grammar master in the College of Jesus. When 
the site of the College was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the 

schoolhouse was reserved by the Crown (exceptis et nobis 

heredibus et successoribus nostris reservatis tota ilia domo 

vocat. le scolehouse). (See Guest, p. i6o.) The intention of this 
reservation was apparently to preserve a school for the teacher of 
grammar. The Commissioners of Edward VL ordered that Thomas 
Snell, the master in grammar in the College of Jesus which they 
dissolved, "should have and enjoy the place of school master, and 
should have for his wages yearly xli- xv^- iiijd. as before. This sum 
was to be paid out of the Court of Augmentations. " The Grammar 
School " was to " continue there." Snell continued to teach, and 
received this salary duly until Michaelmas in the third year of Mary 
(1555) > when it was refused him. He continued to keep school for 
nearly six years afterwards : the town, according to the account in 
"The Fall of Religious Houses, &c.," "hiring" him "for the schole." 
After Elizabeth's accession, the town at the expense of twenty marks 
supported Snell in a successful suit to the Queen, that the salary 
should be paid as in the time of Edward VL, together with part of 
the arrears. (See the "Decree for the revyvyng and continuance of 
the grammar school, 15th April, 1561," (3rd of Elizabeth) in Guest, 

pp. 335. 356- 

The Schoolhouse, which, as we have seen, had always remained 
in the Crown, and probably had been rented or allowed for the use 
of the Grammar School, was granted to Lawrence Woodnett and 
Anthony Collins, for uses of the town of Rotherham, in 1584, at an 
annual rent of sixpence. (See Guest, p. 368.) The present Grammar 
School is thus clearly the daughter of the College of Jesus: and in 
its most distinguished son, Bishop Sanderson, educated first there, 
and then admitted, as a Rotherham man, to one of the Rotherham 
Scholarships founded by the old Archbishop at Lincoln College 
Oxford, we may still recognise the dead hand's beneficence. 



NOTE N. — WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. I9I 

THE WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP 
OF YORK. 

Re-printed, by permission, from " Testamenta Eboracensia," vol. iv., 
{Surtees Society), pp. 128-138, with Notes by Canon Raine. 

(Reg. Test. Dec. et. Cap. Ebor. ii. 23a.) 

INVOCATIO NOMINIS .... In Dei nomine, Amen. Ego Thomas 
Rotherham,* archiepiscopus Eboracensis, sa (nus mente laus Deo), 
sexto die mensis Augusti, in festo Translationis Jhesu, et festo 
Ejusdem (nominis, quse festa in provincia) mea ex decreto meo, et 
cleri mei assensu, pro perpetuo statuunter (celebranda, anno Domini) 
Millesimo cccc™" nonagesimo octavo, condo testamentum meum, prout 
inferius (scribitur per capitula) .... Imprimis commendo animam 
meam Creatori et Redemptori (ejusdem, invocando et exorando) 
gloriosissimam Virginem matrem Ejus ; Michaelem, Gabri (elem, et 
omnes Angelos ; Petrum, Paulum,) Johannem, et omnes Apostolos ; 
Stephanum, Clementem, Vine (entium, et omnes Martyres ; Augusti- 
num,) Jeronimum, Gregorium, Ambrosium, Nicholaum, Willelmum, 
(Johannem, Wilfridum, et omnes Confessores ; Mag) delenam, Kateri- 
nam, Margaretam, et omnes Virgines ; (omnesque caelestis curiae 
gloriosissimos cives ; ut) velint infinitam misericordiam Dei interpellare, 
et (pro peccatis meis orare, de quibus attritus sum et dolens. O si 
sufficienter pcenitens ut mei misere (atur Dominus meus Jhesus, et 
avertere dignetur faciem Suam) ab iUis peccatis meis multis ! . . . . 
Secundo, quia cum beato Job ver (issime credo et scio quod Redemptor 
meus vivit, et quod in came) mea videbo Eum\ post mor(tem ; ita quod 
firmissime credam quod anima mea iterum vestietur carne) mea pro 
sempiterno ; credens (etiam me non meis meritis, sed virtute passionis 
Jhesu Christi et Sanctorum) Ejus precibus meliorem partem resur- 

* I simply put on record here, with a few illustrative notes, what 
is probably the most noble and striking Will of a mediseval English 
bishop in existence. This copy, which is taken from the Register of 
the Dean and Chapter, has been completed from the edition printed 
by Hearne in his appendix to the Liber Niger. The York Register 
has suffered from damp. The words within brackets are supplied 
from Hearne. The words in small capitals are in the margin of 
the MS., and I have put them in as the Archbishop intended that 
his Will should be written " per capitula." 

tjob. xix. 25. 



192 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

rectionis futurae habiturum ; volo quod caro mea, corpus meum 
putridum, sepelietur in brachio boriali capellse Sanctae Mariae in 
ecclesia mea Eboracensi, ubi feci tumbam marmoream.* 

FUNDATIO COLLEGII JHESU. Tertio, quia natus fui in villa 
de Rotherham, et baptizatus in ecclesia parochiali ejusdem villas, et 
ita ibidem natus in mundum. et etiam renatus per lavacrum 
sanctum effluens a latere Jhesu ; Cujus nomen O si amarem ut 
deberem et vellem ! ne tamen horum oblitor ingratus videar, 
volo quod unum collegium perpetuum de nomine Jhesu erigatur 
in villa praedicta, in eodem loco quo in festo Sancti Gregorii, 
anno vicesimo secundo regis Edwardi Quarti, ponebatur fundamentum ; 
in quo etiam natus fueram : in quo etiam loco unus informator 
grammaticze Rotheram veniens, nescio quo fato, sed credo quod gratia 
Dei illuc pervenit ; qui me et alios puberes docebat, unde alii mecum 
ad majora venerunt : proinde gratias Salvatori reddere cupiens et 
causam iliam magnificare, ne ingratus viderer, et oblitor beneficiorum 
Dei, et unde veni, statui mecum primo eruditorem grammatics ibidem 
sempiternis temporibus stabiliri, gratis docentem omnes. Et quia vidi 
sacerdotes cantariales ibidem singulos in singulis locis laicorum com- 
mensare, ad eorum scandalum et ruinam aliorum, volui, secundo eis 
locum communem facere. Ita motus, incepi erigere collegium in 
nomine Jhesu, ubi primus doceret grammatican, et alii similiter 
viverent et pernoctarent. 

STIPENDIA PROPOSITI, SOCIORUM, ET PUERORUM. 
Primo, dedi, et ita volo quod detur annuatim pro victu et vestitu xli., 
sacerdotibus aliis cameras, barbitonsorem, lotricem, coquinam gratis, et 
certa focalia cum aliis, ut Statuta planius docebunt. Et quia vidi, 
tertio, quod ad illam ecclesiam multi pertinent parochiani, et ad earn 
multi confluunt rudi (sic) et montani homines adjacentes, ut melius 
diligant Christi religionem, ecclesiam Ejus saepius visitent, honorent, 
et diligant, unum alium socium perpetuum stabilivi cantum gratis 
docentem, et pro victu et vestitu suo habentem et omni anno 
recipientem vj"- xiij^- iiijd. ; atque sex choristas, sive pueros, ut 
Divina ibidem honorificentius celebrentur pro perpetuo, stabilivi. Et 
volo quod quilibet eorum habeat annuatim pro victu et vestitu xls. 
Quarto, quia multi ibidem valde acuti in ingenio reperiuntur juvenes, 

* This tomb still remains at the east end of the Minster, but 
without its brazen ornaments. It was much injured by the fire of 
1829. 



NOTE N. — WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. 193 

nec omnes volunt sacerdotii dignitatem attingere, ut alii tales ad 
artes mechanicas et alia magis habilitentur, volui et volo quod sit 
unus tertius socius qui artem scribendi et computandi doceat gratis, 
qui vocabitur capellanus Sanctse Katerinse, secundum nuncupationem 
magistri Johannis Fox, qui ei dedit certas possessiones sed valde 
insufficientes. Collegium tamen supplebit defectum, et perpetuabit eum 
secundum Statuta inde facta et fienda. Sed quia ars scribendi, musica 
ipsa similiter, et grammatica subordinantur et serviunt legi Divinae et 
Evangelic, supra istos tres stabilivi, ordino, et volo unum theologum, 
qui ad minus erit bacallarius in theo(logia, et tene)bitur pr£edicare 
verbum Dei per totam provinciam meam, secundum Statuta inde facta ; 
(qui vocabitur pr8eposi)tus, prse aliis tribus positus in regimine et 
politia domus ; et habebit annuatim (pro victu et) vestitu xiij''- vjs. 
viij'i' Sicque incorporavi et incorporo in collegio (meo unum prge- 
positum,) tres socios, et sex pueros, ut ubi offendi Deum in Decem 
Prseceptis (Suis, isti decem orarent) pro me. Sacerdotes chorales non 
obligo ad aliquod spirituale, (sed quia intendo quod mala) quse otium 
sequuntur evitent, ideo volo quod in scola graramaticas, (musicas, artis 
scribendi, doctri)na propositi, aut librariffi studio, sancte et devote 
semper (occupentur. Deo in hoc servire cu)piens, ab Eo solo expecto 
remunerationem, Qui punit (citra et remunerat ultra condigna ; Qui 
est) benedictus in ssecula. Amen. 

.... (Et ad supportanda ista onera appropriavi) dicto collegio, 
prseposito et sociis ejusdem, ecclesiam (parochialem de Laxton, quae 
valet annuatim clare) xx"- Item appropriavi dicto collegio, (prss 
posito et sociis ejusdem), ecclesiam parochialem de Almondbury,)* 
quse valet annuatim xxj"- (Dedi etiam dicto collegio, prseposito et 
sociis ejusdem), manerium meum) de Barkewey, (valoris per ann. xiijl'- 
vjs. viij'^- Item manerium meum) de Sherpenes, quod valet (per 
ann. clare liij^- iiij"- Item manerium meum de Sibth)orp, et manerium 
meum de Hawkesworth, valoris annul clare xv^i- ij^* Item manerium 
meum de Weston, valoris annul iiij''- vjs- viijd- ; tenementum meum 
in Rotherham perquisitum de Thoma Bowne, valoris per annum clare 
xxS- xd.: mesuagium meum juxta collegium ex parte occidentali, annul 
valoris viij^-: mesuagium meum in Byrnnesforth, xxiijs- v"-: cotagium 
meum in Thorp perquisitum de Thoma Wodall, annul valoris viijs. 
iiijd.: tenementum meum vocatum Scoles, annui valoris xxs-: terras 

* The deeds appropriating these churches to the Colleges are in 
the Archbishop's Register, 



194 AKCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

meas cum redd' in Halthanum, valoris xp-: terras meas cum redd' in 
Wighthill, x^-: terras meas cum redd' in Gresebroke, xxviijs- ijd.; terras 
meas cum redd' in Newthorp juxta Aston, valoris annui xjs-: mesuag' 
cum cotagio et cum certis terris et redd' in Mekesburgh, annui valoris 
xxvijs- iiijd- : item terras meas cum redd' et firmis in Dynnyngton, 
Thropen, et Gildenwelles, annui valoris xxxjs- viijd-: item terras meas 
cum redd' et firmis in Staunford juxta Haitfield, annui valoris liij^' 
iiijd-: item terras meas cum redd' in Staveley perquisitas de domino 
Thoma Holynworth, valoris annui xiijS- iiij<i-: item terras et tenementa 
mea in villa de Wentworth, clare valoris annui xxxiiijs-: item clausuram 
meam jacentem in lez Carrehous medows perquisitam de executoribus 
Johannis Bokyng*, valoris annui xiijs- iiij"- 

Post banc dotationem, ultra quam tunc non potui, quia deficiebant 
mihi pecuniae, ut Divina in collegio meo honorificentius celebrentur,f 
dedi eis unum magnum calicem cum patena deaurat', et scribitur super 
patenam, Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini,\ et super pedem 
ejusdem Jhesus Christus, pond. xxxj. unc. iij. quart, di. : item alium 
calicem cum patena deaurat', et scribitur circa ciphum ejusdem 
Calicem salutatis accipiam et nomen Domini invocabo,^ cum imagine 
Trinitatis super patenam, pond, in toto xxiij unc. iij. quart, di. : item 
alium parvum calicem habentem imaginem Christi crucifixi super 
pedem, pond. xj. unc. 

PAXBREDES. Item dedi eis unum deosculatorium, viz. a paxbred, 
deaurat', cum imagine Trinitatis, pond. ix. unc. di. quart. : item unum 
paxbred deauratum cum uno birall in medio, pond. ix. unc. quart, di.: 
item unum paxbred cum osse Sancti Firmini, pond. X. unc. et j, quart. 
CRUX. Item dedi eis unam crucem, deauratam, stantem super 
magnum lapidem de birall, pond. liij. unc. CREWETTES. Item dedi 
collegio meo praedicto unum par crewettes deaurat', et scribitur super 



* On Aug. 24, 1483, John Bokyng, master of the Grammar School 
at Rotherham, desires to be buried in the South Chancel of Rotherham 
Church, near the Stall in which the wife of Richard Lylle, bailiff of 
Rotherham, and Margaret his wife sit. To the fabric of a chapel to 
be built on Rotherham bridge, 3s. 4d. To Margaret his wife a close, 
of the value of 8s. per annum, to go, after her death, to Thomas, 
Archbishop of York, for his College at Rotherham. (Pr. Sept. 17.) 
(Reg. Test. v. 88b.) 

f Here in the margin, Calices. J St. Matt. xxi. 9. 

§ Psa. cxvi. 13. 



NOTE N. — WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. I95 

eisdem Jhesus Christus, et ponderant in toto vij. unc. di.: item unum 
par crewettes deaurat', pond. vij. unc. di. . PIXIS. Item unam 
pixidem argenteam, pond. viij. unc. iij. quart, PELVES. Item dedi 
dicto collegio meo duas pelves argenti et in parte deaurat', habentes 
in fundo capita vulpium, pond. ij. li. j. quart. TACE^. Item dedi 
dicto collegio sex taceas cum una coopertura pro eisdem, cum sole 
operato in fundo cujuslibet tacese, pond, inter se xxx. unc. 
COCLEARIA. Item dedi dicto meo collegio xij. coclearia argentea, 
slipped in lez stalkes, pond, inter se xiiij. unc. VESTIMENTA. Item 
dedi dicto collegio meo unam sectam vestimentorum de veste deaurata, 
pro subdiacono, diacono, et presbytero, cum una capa : tota secta est 
de cloth of gold. Item dedi (aliam sectam) vestimentorum pro 
presbytero, diacono et subdiacono, de rubio velvet operat' cum his 
(verbis, Vivat rex t de) auro, cum una capa cujus orfra est viridis. 
Item aliam vestimentorum sectam (pro presbytero, diacono, et sub- 
diacono,) de rubio purpureo velvet, operat' cum floribus de auro, cum 
una capa ejus (dem sectse. Item dedi) dicto collegio meo unum 
vestimentum de rubio velvet operat' cum (floribus de auro, habens 
super) lez orfray in dorso unum angelum portantem in manu is (tam 
scripturam Sanctus. Item) unum vestimentum de blodio serico cum 
floribus operatis. (Item aliud vestimentum de rubio) serico cum 
leonibus operatis. Item unum vestimentum (operatum cum auro super 
velvet brovi^dred) cum peril), habens in dorso imaginem Sanctae 
(Katerinae. Item unum vestimentum de) rubio bawtkyn operat' cum 
arboribus et leo(nibus. CAPA. Item unam capam pretiosam de cloth 
of goold) grondid greine, cum orfreis bene et sum(ptuose operatis. 
CORPORAX-CACES. Item unum corporax-cace, coloris) albi et rubei, 
operatum cum auro. Item (ij alia corporax-caces de rubio velvet. 
ALTER-CLOTHES. Item sex) alter-clothez de rubio serico, sex 
(curtyns de rubio serico, ij alter-clothez de panno) lineo consecrat'. 
SUPERALTARIA. Item tria (superaltaria consecrata. MITRA. Item 
unam mitram de clothe) of gold, habentem ij (knoppez arg'. enameld, 
datam ad occupandum per barnes-bishop.) CARPETT. Item unum 
carpett pro capella, continens in latitudine unam virgatam et iij quart. 
MISSALIA. Item dedi dicto collegio meo unum pulchrum Missale, 
scriptum secundum usum ecclesi£e Eboracensis, sumptose illuminatum, 
incipiens secundo folio Omnis Judeea. Item aliud pulchrum Missale 
magni pretii, scriptum et illuminatum, ut supra, incipiens secundo 
folio post diac' eat, secundum usum Sarum. ANTIPHONARIUM. 
Item unum magnum Antiphonarium novum et pulchrum, secundum 



ig6 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

usum Ebor., secundo folio facta pectoris. Item aliud magnum Anti- 
phonarium novum et pulchrum, secundum usum Ebor., secundo folio 
sul ad custodiam. GRADALIA. Item dedi dicto collegio meo unum 
Gradale novum et pulchrum, secundum usum Ebor., secundo folio 
In te confido. PORTIPHORIUM. Item unum Portiphorium secundum 
usum Ebor., secundum folio Deus qui. 

ECCLESIA DE LUTON. Item do et lego ecclesise de Luton, 
ubi mater mea sepelitur, et frater, necon ubi, quantum in me est, 
stabilivi successionem sanguinis mei, unam sectam de glauco bawdkyn, 
operatam cum fesanis, pro sacerdote, diacono, et subdiacono ; unum 
calicem deauratum, cum ij cruettes. 

Sed quia, secundum dictum Sancti Pauli, Qui suis non providet, 
et maxime domesticis, est infidelis* volo quod Thomas Rotherham 
miles, senior filius fratris mei,t habeat manerium meum de Somerasse, 
cum omnibus suis pertinentiis, sibi et h^redibus masculis de corpore suo 
legitime procreatis. Etiam volo quod eodem modo habeat manerium 
et dominium de Luton cum hundredo, manerium meum de Hoghton, 
manerium de Fenell, manerium de Downton, maneria de Asperley et 
Yoone, Over-Fondon, Barton, Stopesley, et terras vocatas Creykeys, 
cum omnibus aliis maneriis meis, terris et possessionibus infra 
comitatus Bedford, Harteford et Bukyngham, sub eadem lege ; scilicet, 
sibi et haeredibus masculis de corpore suo legitime procreatis : et in 
defectu talis vel talium hasredum, quod Dominus avertat, volo quod 
omnia przedicta remaneant Georgio fratri suo sub praedicta conditione; 
habenda sibi et hseredibus masculis de corpore suo legitime procreatis: 
et in defectu talis vel taHum hseredum, volo quod omnia prsedicta 
remaneant et revertantur rectis hseredibus meis imperpetuum. Item 

* Ep. ad Tim. i. 1. 

t The Archbishop's brother makes his Will as follows : July; 29, 
1492. Joh. Rotherham, dominus villse de Luton. Sep. coram imagine 
S. Tho. Martyris in capella mea eccl. de Luton ex parte boriali 
annexa. The residue to Alice my Wife ; she, Thomas, archbishop of 
York, my brother, and John Blyth, archdeacon of Richmond and 
Huntingdon, executors. To Thomas Rotherham, my son, a silver 
pece, parcell gilt, enameled with ij. hertes, whereof that oon is blew, 
and that other reede. Son George, Daughter, Alice Rotherham, a 
silver pece graven with myne armes. (Pr. Jan. 27, 1492-3.) (Reg. 
Dogget, et Doctors' Commons, 156.) 

Sir Thomas Rotherham, the son, married Catherine, daughter of 
Anthony lord Grey of Ruthyn, and, dying in 1504, was buried at 
Luton. (Topogr. and Gen. i. 78.) 



NOTE N. — WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. ig7 

volo quod prsedictus Thomas Rotherham miles habeat duas ollas 
argenteas cum floribus columbinis in coopertorio, et ponderant de 
Troy xvij. marc.xj. unc, et sunt de Parish towch. Item volo quod 
Georgius Rotherham* frater dicti Thomje Rotherham militis, pro 
emptione maritagii unius filiarum (blank) Lovell, ad terras valoris 
annuatim xxvjli- xiijs. iiijd., habeat sex taceas cum coopertor', em- 
bossed cum small bulyons, et sunt partim deaurat', Parish towch ; et 
una est altior aliis, et ponderant in toto xxiiij marc. iiij. unc de Troy. 
Item volo quod habeat duas ollas deauratas, wyndyng, chaced, et 
ponderant de Troy cxxij. unc. Volo (etiam quod) habeat xl^i-, si tam 
dives fuero in morte. Item volo quod Thomas Sente George, (qui 
duxit in)uxorem neptem meam, cujus maritagium emi de rege Edwardo 
et postea de (rege Ricardo pro ccli-), habeat sex taceas, sive bollez, 
basse, stantes : in fundo tacearum sunt (flores tres; sunt Parish) 
towch : ponderant de Troy Ixxj unc; alise tres sunt London towch, 
et ponderant, (cum coopertor', c. unc. de Troy.) Volo etiam quod 
habeat duas ollas argenti, wyndyng, chaced, (quorum una est Bruggs 
towch), altera London ; et ponderant de Troy xj marc, ij unc. Et 
quai (filia sororis mese desponsata est Ricardo) Restwold, cujus 
maritagium emi de patre suo pro cc^i- plene (solutis et liberatis, pro 
nuptiis trium filiarum) ejusdem patris sui, et sororum dicti Ricardi ; 
cui multum dedi in pe(cuniis et ahis utensilibus domus suse, sed) 
mater mea multo plura ; volo quod habeat unum vestimentum, (unum 
calicem, unum paxbred, duas phialas,) unum Missale. Item do et 
lego eidem Ricardo duas ollas (argenteas unius sectse partim deau- 
ratas, Parish towch, et) super summitate ejusdem cooperculi est flos 
de uno cola(byn ; et ponderant ambo de Troy xvij. marc. vj. unc.) 
Item volo quod Anna, filia senior dicti Ricardi, (habeat manerium 
meum de Laxton sibi et Humfrido Roos), si veHt eam ducere in 
uxoremf et hseredibus (eorum ; (quod si noluerit, volo quod prsedicta 
neptis mea habeat) pr^dictum manerium ad terminum vitas suse ; (et 
post decessum dictse Annse, volo quod revertatur Humfrido Roos et) 
hseredibus suis. Item volo quod Johannes (Scott, consanguineus meus, 
cui est hasreditas, quamquam parva, in paroch)ia de Ecclesfeld, 



* On June 24, 1497, the Archbishop made George Rotherham, his 
nephew, his apparitor-general. (Reg. Rotherham, 261 b.) 

fThis marriage took place. See Thoroton's "Notts." 374, 376. 
The Rectory of Laxton was one of the livings appropriated by the 
Archbishop to the use of his College at Rotherham. 



jgS ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

successive (descendens in eodem nomine et sanguine, a tempore quo 
non est) memoria hominis, ut ipsa augeatur, me per gratiam meliorato, 
habeat sibi, et hteredibus masculis de corpore sue legitime procreatis, 
manerium meum de Bernes, situatum in parochia prsedicta, quod emi 
de Roberto Shatton pro cxUi. :* ac etiam manerium meum de 
Hottisleys, cum pertinentiis, quod emi de Thoma Worteley milite 
pro cxxl'st et, in defectu talium hseredum, volo quod frater suus 
Ricardus sub eadem lege et conditione habeat prsedicta maneria ; et 
in defectu talium hasredum, volo quod prasdicta maneria revertantur 
rectis hssredibus meis. Item volo quod sub eadem lege et conditione 
pr^dicti Johannes et Ricardus habeant tenementum meum vocatum 
Sugworth in parochia de Bradfeld, cum omnibus pertinentiis. 

Do etiam et lego ecclesise mese Ebor., ultra mitram ditiorem eis 
datam et liberatam, quam emi pro ccccc marcis, imaginem Sanctse 
Margaretae deauratam, stantem super draconem, habentem in una 
manu crucem, in altera librum, et in capite coronam,J: ponderantem 
in toto cxv. unc. Troy. Volo etiam quod vicarii chorales ecclesise 
Ebor. prcedictse habeant cli > ut cum ilia summa emant vel perquirant 
terras, aut ecclesias sibi approprient, si tantum pro eis non fecero 
ante mortem meam ; et pro ista donatione volo quod illi qui cantant 
Antiphonam de Sancto Johanne dicant De Profundis pro anima mea 
immediate post eandem Antiphonam. 

Do etiam et lego ecclesise Roffensi quam primo rexi, utinarn 

* The Archbishop bought the manor of Barnes Hall of Robert 
Shatton, whilst he was Bishop of Lincoln, Feb. 7, 1476-7 (ex. Orig.) 

t On June 8, 1485, Joan, late wife of John Houselay, of Chapel 
Hall, par. Ecclesfield, confirms to the Archbishop of York lands called 
" Cropperfeld, Holgrenes, Welgrenes, le Felde, and Gallancroft," within 
Houseley and Chapell, which she and her husband held of the grant 
of Sir Thomas Wortley, knt. On June 12, 1488, Nicholas Wortley 
quit-claims to the Archbishop his interest in the same property. On 
January 14, 1493-4, William Graybern, provost, and the Fellows of 
the College of Jesus in Rotherham, quit-claim to John Scott and his 
heirs their interest in Houseley and le Chapell in accordance with 
a charter thereof made to the said John by the Archbishop himself. 
On Nov. 4, 1507, John Scott makes Houseley Hall over to trustees as 
part of the jointure of Agnes his wife (ex. Orig.) 

I These beautiful things are mentioned in the great inventory of 
the treasures of York, which is printed in the Fabric Rolls of that 
church. 



NOTE N. — WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, igg 

juxta onus susceptum ad salutem animeffi ! ultra denarios eis datos 
pro asdificatione libraries ibidem, xli- 

Do etiam et lego Collegio Novo Cantabrigias, prseter et ultra 
magnas pecuniarum summas pro BBdificatione et reparatione ecclesias 
ibidem tempore magistri Roberti Wodlark solutas et datas, optimam 
meam sectam rubiam de veste deaurata, cum sex capis et omnibus 
sacerdoti, diacono, et subdiacono pertinentibus. Volo etiam quod 
habeant in pecuniis c^i- ad reparationem novas ecclesise ibidem, si in 
vita mea tantum vel plus non exposuero : et si non ita in morte 
tam potens fuero aliis legatis impletis. 

Do etiam et lego collegio de Wyngam, ubi prsepositus fui, calicem 
pretii c s. 

Do etiam et lego ecclesise parochiali de Rippill, ubi primo rector 
fui,* ultra capam eidem datam, calicem pretii c s. 

Do etiam et lego omnibus locis in quibus habeo perpetuas 
exequias tales denariorum summas quales executores mei asstimabunt 
honestas et salubres animse mese ; in qua Eestimatione videndum est 
cujus necessitatis sint, et quid pro eis fecerim. Hanc ultimam 
voluntatem meam permultum eis commendo : et, si forte executoribus 
meis, vel ad minus tribus eorum, videbitur quod exequise tales erunt 
multum onerosEe aliquibus locis, et quod parum feci pro eis, ipsi 
etiam sperantes majora illis concessa, volo quod commutent prsedictas 
exequias in numerum Missarum, citius quo bene fieri poterit, pro 
salute animse mese post mortem meam per eos celebrandarum. 

Et disponendo pro domesticis meis volo quod Ricardus Birley, 
prsRter Ixxx''- solutas Johanni Everyngham militi pro maritagio suo, 
(et ultra expensas) in nuptiis suis, etiam in servitio regis, et prseter 
diversas pecuniarum summas (ante et post) solutas pro eo, habeat 
terras et tenementa mea in Cawod per me empta (de Pouldon). Volo 
etiam quod habeat terras et tenementa empta pecuniis meis in 
(parochia de Gaitford. Item volo) quod unusquifque servitorum 
meorum, in vadiis meis exis-(tentium in morte mea, habeat vadia 
sua) post mortem meam per semi-annum. Volo etiam quod unus- 
(quisque eorum habeat equum ad valorem) xxs., aut pretium pro equo, 
sic quod generosi, valecti, (et garciones de camera habeant de 
propriis) equis meis secundum limitationem executorum meorum. 
(Item volo quod omnes servitores mei) convivere volentes in domo 
mea, habeant (victum honestum expensis meis pro uno quarterio) 

* The Archbishop was rector of Ripple, co. Worcester, 1461-5. 
(Nash's "Worcestershire," ii. 299.) 



200 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

anni post decessum meum : eo fine volo hsec (ut interim provideant 
sibi de magistris novis.) Deus concedat eis bonos ! Amen ! Amen ! 
(Amen ! 

Istud capitulum volui quum eram potentior, sed) nunc volo quod 
moderetur secundum discre(tionem executorum meum, vel adnulletur 
si pauper) decedam. 

Volo etiam quod Hugo (Trotter, thesaurarius ecclesise mepe Ebor. 
et Henricus) CarnebuU archidiaconus Eb(or. habeant de bonis meis 
ccli- ad ilium finem et usum, et) non aliter, nee alio modo, ut 
defendetur ilia pecunia collegium meum Jhesu de Rotherham, si ei 
injuriatur : quod si non eveniat, volo tunc quod cum prffidicta summa 
emantur terrge ad valorem xli- ad minus per annum ; aut cum illis 
pecuniis approprietur ecclesia ejusdem valoris ad minus, vicario bene 
dotato juxta curam animarum ejusdem parochise, prsedicto collegio meo 
de Rotherham. Istam meam voluntatem ultra eis multum commendo 
et alteri eorum diutius viventi. 

Item corde volo et oro ut executores mei, secundum spem quam 
in eis pono, et secundum quod respondere volunt Christo, summam 
diligentiam adhibeant ut mille Missfe celebrentur immediate, quamcitius 
poterint fieri, post decessum meum, ut in tot sacrificiis et per tot 
memorias passionis Christi mitius agatur cum anima mea ; scio enim 
quod peccata mea multa magnam et longam petunt et requirunt 
pcenam, immo infinitam, quia contra Infinitum fuerint perpetrata et 
commisa ; sed cum beato Augustino firmiter credo et dico quod non 
possunt terrere me peccata mea dum mors Domini mei in mentem 
meam venerit, quia in vulneribus corporis Sui cupio ea abscondere, 
et in sacramentis ecclesiffi ab eis fluentibus volo ea abluere per 
gratiam Domini nostri Jhesu benedicti ; quod Ipse concedat Qui pro 
me tam ignominiose voluit mori, et tot plagas pati ! Et volo quod 
quilibet sacerdos sic celebrans ad minus habeat de bonis meis iiijd. 
Hanc ultimam voluntatem meam executoribus meis summe commendo. 

Executores hujus testamenti sive ultimse voluntatis ordino, volo 
et constituo Galfridum Blythe decanum ecclesise mege cathedralis 
Ebor., Hugonem Trotter thesaurarium ejusdem ecclesias mese, Henricum 
CarnebuU archidiaconum Ebor., Willelmum Skelton eccl. cath. Lincoln. 
thesaurarium, Edmundum Carter custodem capellse B.M. et SS. 
Angelorum Ebor., et Ricardum Burleton servitorem meum: et volo 
quod unusquisque onus hoc in se assumens habeat cs. quod 
disponant residuum bonorum meorum non legatorum, prout eis melius 
videbitur expedire saluti annimje mese, secundum confidentiam quam 



NOTE N. — WILL OF THOS. ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. 20I 

in eis pono ; ea conditione et lege quod ad minus tres eorum 
conveniant et consentiant in omni dispositione bonorum meorum non 
legatorum. Hujus, insuper, ultimo voluntatis mesa supervisorem ordino 
et constituo magistrum Johannem Alcok episcopum Eliensem, cui 
dono, ut oret pro me, meliorem taceam alte stantem, deauratam et 
coopertam, non legatem. 

Consummatum erat istud testamentum, subscriptum manu mea 
propria, in festo Sancti Bartholomei proximo sequente inceptionem 
ejusdem testamenti mei superius expressatam. Et quia plura condidi 
testamenta, volo quod hsec mea voluntas ultima, incepta, ut supra, 
et vicesimo quarto die dicti mensis Augusti consummata, in festo 
Sancti Bartholomei, anno Domini supradicto, in quo die natus eram, 
et septuagesimum quintum annum complevi, stet in suo robore; et 
quod omnia alia testamenta ante hoc tempus scripta, ubicumque 
reperta fuerint, adnullentur. 

Protestor etiam quod in passione Christi et in sacramentis 
ecclesise vigorem ab eadem sumentibus pono spem salutis animae 
mese ; et quod in nullo articulo fidei hsesito nee unquam hjesitavi ; 
et si forte, quod Deus avertat ! infirmitatis morbo, vel causa aliqua, 
in extremis laborans aliud pronunciavero, (nego pronunc) ut extunc, 
et extunc prout exnunc, abrenuntians et detestans jam et semper 
(quicquid fuerit) repugnans sponsse Christii, ecclesije Suse sanctse, 
quia verus Christianus volo (mori, cupio mori,) et oro atque iterum 
oro ut sic moriar. Amen ! Amen ! Amen I 



(June ID, 1500. The Chapter of York appoint Mr. Geoffrey 
Blythe, Mr. Hugh Trotter, Mr. Henry Carnebull, Mr. William Skelton, 
and Edmund Carter and Richard Burleton, administrators. Pr. (blank) 
Nov. 1500 



202 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

NOTE O. 

TRACES OF ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM IN YORK 

MINSTER 

The only existing associations with Archbishop Rotherham in the 
Minster at York, which I know, are the tomb (p. 152) and the 
curious wooden head in the vestry (Note P.). Torre, however, says, 
that a shield with Rotherham's Arms impaling those of the Arch- 
bishopric was in a window in the North transept. In 1489 also a 
license was given to him and Thomas Pereson sub-dean of York to 
found a chantry in honor of Christ, The Virgin, All Saints, and 

St. Frideswide at the west end of the tomb of St. William 

to ptay for the good estate of the King (Henry VII.), the King's 

Consort Elizabeth, his first-born son, Arthur Prince of Wales 

and the King's mother, Margaret Countess of Richmond, Thomas 
Archbishop of York and Thomas Pereson, and for their sons after 
death, and for the sons of John late Duke of Somerset and Margaret 
his Wife : with license to receive an annuity of 9 marcs from the 
priory of Newburg. 

(See " Materials for the History of the Reign of Henry VII,," 
Vol. 2, p. 405. Rolls series 60). 

The Chantry subsequently founded for him by Carnebull has been 
mentioned (p. 158). 




JG ^^ 






NOTE P. — REPRESENTATIONS OF ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 203 

NOTE P. 
REPRESENTATIONS OF ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

I use the word Representation in order to include in this Note 
the remarkable wooden head, now preserved in the Vestry of York 
Minster, which, if we may assume it to be the copy of Rotherham's 
features, is the most authentic of all the likenesses. Drake (Eboracum, 
p. 447) tells us that this head was found in the vault near Rotherham's 
bones in the year. 1735. It seems certain that it was the head of 
one of those effigies which were borne in a funeral procession, and 
afterwards laid for some time on the tomb of the dead. When it 
was discovered there was a stick in the nape of the neck at the 
back. The skull is flattened behind, in order that it may rest level : 
it was plainly designed to be seen in a recumbent position. The 
stick may indicate that the body of the effigy clothed in robes was 
made of some perishable stuff. In the interesting account of the 
remarkable wax effigies at Westminster Abbey, ("Westminster Abbey 
Guide," p. 58), there is a quotation from Dart's " History of the 
Abbey Church of Westminster," which says that the effigy of 
Henry V. was made of tanned leather. The heads of earlier effigies 
were made, as this one is, not of wax, but of wood (Ibid). It is 
impossible to assert positively that this head is that of Rotherham's 
effigy, which would remain for some time on his tomb. But it seems 
most probable that it is : and that when the body of the effigy 
became dilapidated, it was laid near his bones below. As heads of 
this character were intended to represent the dead, care was taken 
about the carving : and this head is obviously not a conventional one, 
but a distinctive likeness of the dead. The nose is mutilated : the 
ears were never carved, probably because the sides of the face were 
hidden by flowing locks. But the strong mouth, the long drawn face, 
large closed eyes, and capacious forehead are those of a determined 
big-brained man. {See Frontispiece.) 

The next representation of Rotherham is the Initial Letter of 
"The Statutes of The College of Jesus" (see p. 131). It is, however, 
not very characteristic. The mouth is smaller : the head a long one : 
the flowing locks under the mitre very full. The single cross in the 
left hand should be carefully noted for a reason that will appear 
directly. Over the chasuble is the pall. 

The most well-known portrait is the half-length picture at Lincoln 



204 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

College Oxford, which has been copied, I believe, at King's College 
and Pembroke Cambridge. It knows nothing of pall or chasuble. 
Rotherham is represented in a black cassock with frills at the wrist, 
a surplice with full sleeves, a crimson cope, and a hood of cloth of 
gold. On his head is a mitre rather steeper than the one in the 
Statutes. The hands are joined in prayer. The face is a long one, 
as is the case with the wooden head, the eyes large and brown, 
grey hair, grey beard cut short. The expression very sorrowful. The 
mouth and chin weaker than those of the wooden head. Near the 
figure stands a triple cross, with ornate finials. Tradition says that 
Bishop Sanderson gave this picture to the College. It is precisely 
similar in treatment to that of the companion-picture of the first 
Founder Fleming, In the upper left-hand corner is Rotherham's coat 
of arms — the three bucks trippant : and beneath this the inscription, 
" Thomas Rotherham, 2us Fundator obijt 1500." On a gilt board 
below is the inscription, " Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln 
1472-80. Second Founder 1475." No reference is made in either 
inscription to his Archbishopric. The dress and probably the features 
of this portrait cannot be considered as authoritative. The triple 
cross is a remarkable mistake. In the portrait at the beginning of 
" The Statutes of the College of Jesus," certainly authentic, the cross 
is single. There is, however, a picture representing Wolsey with a 
double cross. Becket is also so represented. But the triple cross is 
Papal. 

The portrait of Rotherham, painted in 1670 as one of a series 
of the Founders of Colleges, which was in the Bodleian (see p. 70), 
is now lost. 

There are several engravings extant. In a Series of Founders 
of Colleges is a mezzotint by Faber, of which a copy is given 
(p. 108), dedicated to Fitz-Herbert Adams, Rector of Lincoln College 
(1685-1719). It has beneath it an inscription : 

Tho de Rotherham alias Scot Lincoln : 

deinde Archiep : Ebor : totius Angliae 

Cancells Coll: B. Mari^ & Omn. 

Sancto : Lincoln Fundator Secund : 

A.D, 1478. 

In the middle of the Inscription is a Shield with Rotherham's 
Arms — the three bucks trippant. 

Mr. Leach, the Assistant Curator of the Hope Gallery, has 
kindly informed me that Faber's plates passed subsequently through 



NOTE P. — REPRESENTATIONS OF ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 205 

several hands, until they reached those of H. Parker, Cornhill. The 
engraving as published by Parker is given in Guest's " Historic 
Notices of Rotherham." It has three notable variations. The flap 
at the back of the mitre is added, as in the portrait at Lincoln. On 
the other hand the ring on the second finger in that portrait and 
Faber's mezzotint is omitted. Instead of the name of Fitz-Herbert 
Adams that of the contemporary Rector of that day — " Richard 
Hutchins " (1755-1781) is inserted. The impression at first sight on 
comparing these engravings with the Lincoln portrait is that they 
w^ere copied from it. If however the lost picture in the Series of 
Founders in the Bodleian was itself a copy of the portrait at Lincoln, 
they may have been really copied from this, though the difference is 
of little consequence. The Inscription is quite different from those 
at Lincoln, and almost identical with the one which Anthony Wood 
gives as under the portrait of Rotherham at the Bodleian (p. 70) ; 
and there is a third distinct engraving by T, Nugent from a drawing 
by Sylvester Harding (1745-1509), taken '■'■from a Painting in the 
Picture Gallery at Oxford, the detail of which (so far as it goes — 
the head and shoulders only being given) is identical with the 
portrait at Lincoln. 

I am extremely indebted to Mr. T. W. Jackson the Curator and 
the Assistant Curator of the Hope Art Gallery at Oxford, and Rev. H. 
Fleetwood Sheppard for much kind investigation of these minutise. 



2o6 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 



AUTHORITIES. 



A Key to English Antiquities : by Mrs. E. C. Armitage. 

Alumni Etonenses : by Harwood. 

Ancient Deer Parks: by Philip Evelyn Shirley. 

Annals of Cambridge : by Charles H. Cooper. 

Antiquities of Nottinghamshire : by Thoroton. 

Antiquities of the University of Oxford : by Anthony A. Wood. 

Architectural History of Cambridge : by Professor Willis — edited by 

J. Willis Clark. 
Athense Cantabrigienses : by C. H. &> J. Cooper. 
Beverlac ; or, Antiquities of Beverley : by George Poulson. 
Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, Vol. iv. 
Biographical History of the Judges : by E. Foss. 
Cambridge Antiquarian Communications. 

Cambridge Described and Illustrated : by Thos. Dinham Atkinson. 
Cambridge Grace Book A : Luard Series. 

Cartulary of Lincoln College Oxford: MS. of Rev. Andrew Clark. 
Chronicles of English History : Croyland Historian, Fabyan, Grafton, 

Hall, Holinshed, Sir Thomas More, Polydore Vergil. 
Coming of the Friars : by Dr. Jessop. 
Commines, Philip de. 
Dictionary of National Biography : Articles on Edward IV., Richard III., 

and Thomas Rotherham. 
Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages: by J. H. Parker. 
Dugdale's Monasticon : edited by Sir Henry Ellis. 
Eboracum : by Francis Drake. 
Eminent Etonians : by Sir Ed. Creasy. 
Godwin, De Prsesulibus Anglic, 1613. 
Grants from the Crown during the Reign of Edward V. : by J. G. 

N. Nichols. 
Guest, John : Historic Notices of Rotherham. 
History of Cathedrals : by Browne Willis. 
History of Edward IV. : by Habington, in Kennett's History of 

England. 
History of England : by Lingard. 



AUTHORITIES. 207 

History of England : by Sharon Turner. 

History of Eton College : by H. C. Maxwell Lyte. 

History of Kent: by E. Hasted. 

History of the Metropolitical Church of York : by John Browne. 

History of Worcestershire : by Nash. 

Hunter, Joseph : Deanery of Doncaster. 

Hunter, Joseph : History of Hallamshire. 

Introduction to the History of England: by H. O. Wakeman. 

Last of the Barons : by Lord Lytton. 

Le Neve's Fasti : edited by T. Duffus Hardy. 

Leland's Itinerary. 

Letters of Christ Church Canterbury. 

Letters and Papers, illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III. and 

Henry VII. : edited by James Gairdner. 
Letters ot Queen Margaret of Anjou and Bishop Beckington : 

Camden Society. 
Lives of the Lord Chancellors : by Lord Campbell. 
Manuscripts : 

Catalogue of Members of King's College Cambridge : by Thomas 

Hatcher and John Scott. 
Consistory Book at Rochester. 
Inventory of 1452. King's College Cambridge. 
Patent Rolls— Edward IV. 

Register of Archbishop Bourchier — Lambeth Library. 
Register of Thomas Rotherham, Lincoln. 
Register of Thomas Rotherham, York. 
Wrenn's Manuscripts, Pembroke College Cambridge. 
Manuscripts in the Library of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge: 

edited by Montagu James Rhodes. 
Memoirs Illustrative of the History and Antiquities of the Countj' 

and City of Lincoln. 
Memorials of the Family of Scot of Scot's Hall : edited by James 

Renat Scott. 
Notes and Queries: 5th Series. Vols, vii., viii., ix. 
Parliamentary History : by Cobbett. 
Eegisters of Ecclesfield : edited by Alfred Scott Gatty. 
Register of Archbishop Gray : edited by Canon Raine : Surtees Society. 
Register of the University of Oxford : edited by C. W. Boase, 
Rymer's Foedera. 
Statutes of Lincoln College Oxford. 



208 ARCHBISHOP ROTHERHAM. 

Testamenta Eboracensia, Vcl. iv. :. edited by Canon Raine. 

Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society. 

University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times : by J. Bass 

Mullinger. 
Valor Ecclesiasticus. 

Wingham, Chronicles of: by Arthur Hussey. 
Wyrcester, William of: Annales, 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Alcock, Bishop .. .. 85 

Altar of Jesus, Rotherham .. .. 135 

Anjou, Margaret of 37. 38, 39. 51. 54 

Anne Queen .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. io5 

Battergey 124 

Battles— 

St. Albans 38 

Tewkesbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 

Towton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 

Wakefield 38 

Beaufitz, Agnes 7 

Beckynton, Bishop .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 21 

Bellasis, Mr. 5 

Benevolence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 

Beverley . . . . . . . . . , . , . , . . . 42 

Bishopthorpe .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ., 127 

Bolingbroke, Henry of . . . . 53 

Bourchier, Cardinal .. .. .. .. .. .. 35, 38, 179 

Buckden .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. iig 

Cambridge . . 57 

Cambridge Colleges — 

Catherine Hall . . 57 

King's College 21, 22, 25, 29 

Pembroke Hall ,. .. .. 93 

Queen's College 57 

Cambridge — 

College Buildings 27 

Monastic Buildings .. .. .. .. .. .. 27 

University Library . . . . . . 28 

Old Schools 28 

Town of . . . . . . . . . . 25 

Campbell, Lord 32, 73-6, 85 

Canterbury, Christ Church, Monastery of 36, 78 

Carnebull, Henry 19, 133, 158, 186, 189 



2IO INDEX. 

PAGE 

Cawood .. 127 

Chantry Priests . . . . . . . . . . • . . • • • 144 

Chapel, King's College 30 

Chapel, Old, King's College .. 30 

Chedworth, Bishop 23, 171 

Clarence, Duke of 48, 50, 51, 54, 91 

Clifford, Maud 18 

Cole, Antiquarian . . . . . . . . . . . . . - . . 60 

College of Jesus, Rotherham .. .. .. .. .. 137-151 

College Rooms, Cambridge . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 

Commines, Philip de .- .. .. .. .. .. 89 

Conisborough . , • . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 

Conisborough, Richard of . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 

Edward IV 39. 45. 50-54. 77. 83, 87, 89, 91, 96 

Edward V 52, 99. 102, 105 

Elizabeth, Queen 36, 51, 100 

Eton 21 

Fleming, Bishop .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 64 

Fuller 5, 59 

Godwin (de Prsesulibus) . . .. 6, 31 

Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 190 

Greybarn, William .. .. .. . .. .. .. 140 

Hatcher .. 4, 22 

Henry VI 22, 51, 55 

Henry VII.,. ,. .. .. .. .. .. .. 30, 107 

Henry VIII 30,108 

King's College, Cambridge .. .. .. .. 21, 22, 25, 29 

King's College, Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 

King's College Old Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 

Laxton . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . 139 

Leland . . . . . . - . . . 2, 14 

Lewis XL 87, 96 

Lincoln, Manors of Bishop .. .. ., .. .. .. 118 

Lincoln College Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . 64, 173-175 

Millington, William 23 

More, Sir Thomas 75. 178 

Mortimer, Edmund 18 

Morton, Bishop of Ely .. . .. 83, 161 

Nevile, Archbishop .. .. .. .. .. .. 47, 54, 125 

Nevile, Robert 188 



INDEX. 



99 



211 

PAGE 
64, 173-175 
36, 40 
40, 76, 96 
166-168 



Oxford, Lincoln College 

Oxford, Earl of 

Parliament . . 

Pedigrees . . 

Picquigny . . 

Philobiblon . . 

Purgatory . . 

Pursglove, Robert, Bishop of Hull 

Raine, Canon 

Register of Ecclesfield 

Registers of Lincoln 

Register of York . . 

Richard IIL 

Rochester, Manors of Bishop . . 

Rotherham, John . . 

Rotherham, Roger 

Rotherham, Sir Thomas and Dame Alice 

Rotherham, Family of 

Rotherham, Thomas, Archbishop — 

Arms 7, 165; Archbishop of York 94; Bishop of Lincoln 56; 

Bishop of Rochester 48 ; Chancellor of Cambridge 56-57 ; 

Chancellor of England 72 ; Chaplain to Earl of Oxford 36 ; 

Chaplain to Edward IV. 45 ; Degrees 172 ; Keeper of Privy 

Seal 45 ; Master of Pembroke Hall 93 ; Provost of Beverley 42 ; 

Provost of Wingham 34; Prebendary of Lincoln 41 ; Prebendary 

of Salisbury 41 ; Will 2, 14, 152 sequ , 191 sequ. 
Rotherham, Chapel of Our Lady 
Rotherham, Church of . . 



32 

145. i57 

188 

2, log 

3 

41, 56, no 

94. "o 
105, 179, 181 

.. 118 

4, 9, 10, 163 

4, 10 

•• 4= 9 
163, i65-i68 



Rotherham, College of Jesus 
Rotherham, Town of 
Russell, Bishop 
Savage, Archbishop 
Scott, John. . 
Scott, Mr. J. Renat 
Scotte, Sir John . . 
Scotts of Barnes Hall . . 
Scotts of Scots Hall 
Sellynge, Prior 
St. Catherine, Gild of .. 
St. Vedast, Foster Lane 



14, 20, 137 sequ., ij 



13. 137 
13' 133 

186, 188 

12 

120 

.. 125 



■ 6, 7 

6 

. 2, 5 

6 

34. 160 

136 

40 



212 INDEX. 

PAGE 
Southwell .. .. 124 

Someries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 

Stow Park ., .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 125 

Thraves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ■ . . . 43 

Warwick, Earl of.. .. .. .. .. 38, 46, 47, 49, 51, 53 

Wenlock, Lord .. 176 

Whitehall 123 

Winchester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 

Wingham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 

Wood, Anthony a Wood .. .. .. .. .. 2, 23, i6g 

Wortley 141 

York, Duke of 18, 36-38 

York, Manors of Archbishop .. .. .. .. .. .. 122 

York Minster 155 



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